Neurocan expression associates with better survival and viral positivity in Merkel cell carcinoma.

Autor: Marko Salmikangas, Maria Laaksonen, Henrik Edgren, Marco Salgado, Anu Suoranta, Pirkko Mattila, Virve Koljonen, Tom Böhling, Harri Sihto
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: PLoS ONE, Vol 18, Iss 5, p e0285524 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1932-6203
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285524
Popis: Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare cutaneous neuroendocrine carcinoma that is frequently divided into Merkel cell polyomavirus negative and positive tumors due their distinct genomic and transcriptomic profiles, and disease outcomes. Although some prognostic factors in MCC are known, tumorigenic pathways, which that explain outcome differences in MCC are not fully understood. We investigated transcriptomes of 110 tissue samples of a formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded MCC series by RNA sequencing to identify genes showing a bimodal expression pattern and predicting outcome in cancer and that potentially could play a role in tumorigenesis. We discovered 19 genes among which IGHM, IGKC, NCAN, OTOF, and USH2A were associated also with overall survival (all p-values < 0.05). From these genes, NCAN (neurocan) expression was detected in all 144 MCC samples by immunohistochemistry. Increased NCAN expression was associated with presence of Merkel cell polyomavirus DNA (p = 0.001) and viral large T antigen expression in tumor tissue (p = 0.004) and with improved MCC-specific survival (p = 0.027) and overall survival (p = 0.034). We conclude that NCAN expression is common in MCC, and further studies are warranted to investigate its role in MCC tumorigenesis.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals
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