Overexpression of clusterin correlates with tumor progression, metastasis in gastric cancer: a study on tissue microarrays

J. BI, A. L. GUO, Y. R. LAI, B. LI, J. M. ZHONG, H. Q. WU, Z. XIE, Y. L. HE, Z. L. LV, S. H. LAU, Q. WANG, X. H. HUANG, L. J. ZHANG, J. M. WEN, X. Y. GUAN

Abstract:

Clusterin (CLU) is expressed in a wide variety of human tissues and fluids. Overexpression of cytoplasmic clusterin (sCLU) has been implicated in cancer development and progression. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the association of sCLU overexpression with clinicopathological features of human gastric carcinomas (GC).We constructed a gastric cancer tissue microarray containing 173 primary gastric carcinomas and 70 paired non-neoplastic mucosa specimens. The expression of sCLU was studied by immunohistochemistry. The correlations between sCLU expression and clinicopathological features, p53 abnormality, as well as Ki67 activation were analyzed. Overexpressions of sCLU was detected in 28.5% (n=165) of primary GCs by immunohistochemical staining, but not in non-neoplastic mucosa. Clinical association study found that overexpression of sCLU was significantly correlated with lymph-node metastasis (p