We also studied the effects of AQP3 on EMT-related proteins and the involved signaling pathway in human GC cells. Materials and methods Human gastric tissue specimens Patients diagnosed with gastric adenocarcinoma (n = 89; median age, 56 years; range, 35–75 years) between June GDC-0068 2007 and September 2008 at the Department of General Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, were randomly enrolled in this study. All patients were diagnosed pathologically according to the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) criteria. None of these patients had received CB-839 chemotherapy or radiotherapy before surgery. Samples of tumor and corresponding non-cancerous tissue
from all patients were collected immediately after resection and snap frozen in liquid nitrogen. These human gastric tissue specimens had been used in our previous study [16]. All patients were followed up until September 2013, with a median follow-up of 60 months. Overall survival (OS) was defined as the interval between the dates of surgery and death. The correlation between expression of AQP3, E-cadherin or vimentin, and clinicopathological characteristics of patients was evaluated. These characteristics are listed in Table
1. No cases with distant metastasis KPT-330 mw were observed in this study. This study was approved by the Nanjing Medical University Institutional Review Board. Written consent was given by the patients for their information and samples N-acetylglucosamine-1-phosphate transferase to be stored in the hospital database and used for research. This study was also in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration. Table 1 Correlation between AQP3, E-cadherin,vimentin expression and clinicopathological features in GC Clinicopathological features n AQP3 E-cadherin Vimentin + – P-value + – P-value + – P-value Age(yr) 0.628 0.825 0.763 ≤50 32 22 10 12 20 4 28 >50 57 43 14 23 34 10 47 Gender 0.318 0.653 0.363 Male 58 40 18 24 34 11 47 Female 31 25 6 11 20 3 28 Lauren classification 0.008 0.659 0.015 Intestinal 54 34 20 20 34 4 50 Diffuse 35 31 4 15 20 10 25 Tumor size
0.303 0.816 0.758 <3.0 cm 28 18 10 10 18 5 23 ≥3.0 cm 61 47 14 25 36 9 52 Tumor location 0.515 0.920 0.880 Upper third 15 10 5 6 9 3 12 Middle third 26 19 7 11 15 4 22 Lower third 48 37 9 18 30 5 41 Depth of tumor invasion 0.511 0.031 0.139 Localized in subserosa 38 13 25 20 18 3 35 Beyond subserosa 51 22 29 15 36 11 40 Lymph node metastasis 0.010 0.201 N0 12 4 8 0.002 9 3 0 12 N1–N3 77 61 16 26 51 14 63 Lymphovascular invasion 0.044 0.000 0.004 Absence 58 38 20 32 26 4 54 Presence 31 27 4 4 28 10 21 Immunohistochemical detection of AQP3, E-cadherin, and Vimentin Expression of AQP3, E-cadherin, and vimentin in specimens was determined by immunohistochemistry (IHC) as described previously [18].