Abstract
Background: The MRE11/RAD50/NBS1 (MRN) complex plays an essential role in detecting and repairing double-stranded breaks, and thus the potential roles of MRE11, RAD50 and NBS1 proteins in the pathogenesis of various cancers is the subject of investigation. This study was aimed at assessing the three-protein panel of MRN complex subunits as a potential radiosensitivity marker and evaluating the prognostic and clinicopathological implications of MRN expression in rectal cancer. Methods: Samples from 265 rectal cancer patients treated with surgery and adjuvant chemoradiotherapy, including samples from 55 patients who were treated with neoadjuvant radiotherapy between 2000 and 2011, were analyzed. Expression of MRN complex proteins in tissue samples was determined by immunohistochemistry. Univariate and multivariate analyses were carried out to identify clinicopathological characteristics that are associated with the MRN three-protein panel expression in rectal cancer samples. Results: In Kaplan-Meier survival analyses, we found that high level expression of MRN complex proteins in postoperative samples was associated with poor disease-free (p"‰="‰0.021) and overall (P"‰="‰0.002) survival. Interestingly, high MRN expression also correlated with poor disease-free (P"‰="‰0.047) and overall (P"‰="‰0.024) survival in the neoadjuvant radiotherapy subgroup. In multivariate analysis, combined MRN expression (hazard ratio"‰="‰2.114, 95% confidence interval 1.096-4.078, P"‰="‰0.026) and perineural invasion (hazard ratio"‰="‰2.160, 95% confidence interval 1.209-3.859, P"‰="‰0.009) were significantly associated with a worse disease-free survival. Conclusions: Expression levels of MRN complex proteins significantly predict disease-free survival in rectal cancer patients, including those treated with neoadjuvant radiotherapy, and may have value in the management of these patients.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 869 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | BMC Cancer |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2018 |
Open Access - Access Right Statement
© The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Keywords
- DNA repair
- biochemical markers
- cancer
- prognosis
- radiotherapy
- rectum
