Objective: To analyze the significance of sterile alpha motif domain-containing 9 (SAMD9) expression in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).
Methods: Immunohistochemical staining was performed to detect the expression of SAMD9 in 72 primary ESCC and matched adjacent cancer-free tissues and analyze the significance of SAMD9 expression in ESCC tissues. In addition, Western blotting was used to detect the expression of SAMD9 in primary ESCC tissues which were taken from 3 metastatic and 3 non-metastatic patients during surgery.
Results: The expression of SAMD9 in the ESCC tissues had no statistical difference from that in the matched adjacent cancer-free tissues. SAMD9 expression was significantly correlated with lymphatic invasion and metastasis in these patients (P<0.05), but not with age, gender, tumor differentiation and T stage (P>0.05). Western blotting showed that SAMD9 expression in primary ESCC tissues was significantly higher in the patients with metastasis than in the ones without metastasis(P<0.01).
Conclusion: Over-expression of SAMD9 is correlated with the metastasis of ESCC, indicating that it might play an important role in the metastasis of ESCC.