High expression of Snail1 is associated with EMAST and poor prognosis in CRC patients

Somayeh Mohammadpour; Amir Torshizi Esfahani; Raana Karimpour; Farbod Bakhshian; Seyed Abdolreza Mortazavi Tabatabaei; Asma Laleh; Ehsan Nazemalhosseini-Mojarad

High expression of Snail1 is associated with EMAST and poor prognosis in CRC patients

Gastroenterol Hepatol Bed Bench. 2019;12(Suppl1):S30-S36.

Authors

Somayeh Mohammadpour¹, Amir Torshizi Esfahani¹, Raana Karimpour², Farbod Bakhshian³, Seyed Abdolreza Mortazavi Tabatabaei⁴, Asma Laleh¹, Ehsan Nazemalhosseini-Mojarad⁵

Affiliations

¹ Basic and Molecular Epidemiology of Gastrointestinal Disorders Research Center, Research Institute for Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
² Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Advanced Science and Technology, Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
³ Department of Food Sciences and Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
⁴ Proteomics Research Center, Faculty of Paramedical Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
⁵ Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases Research Center, Research Institute for Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

PMID: 32099599
PMCID: PMC7011066

Abstract

Aim: This study aimed to determine the link between Snail1 expression and CRC patients' survival as well as its significant association with EMAST status.

Background: Snail1 is an evolutionary preserved zinc-finger transcription protein which contributes to Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). EMT initiates invasion and proliferation in many tumors. Elevated microsatellite alteration at selected tetranucleotide repeats (EMAST) is a marker of poor prognosis in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC). We hypothesized that Snail1 overexpression is an important mediator of metastasis and decreased survival in CRCs that characteristically have EMAST phenotype.

Methods: Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reactions were carried out to analyze the expression levels of Snail1 in both normal and tumor specimens from a total of 122 paraffin-embedded tissues (FFPE) of CRC sample with known EMAST status. The correlation between Snail1 expression and clinicopathological characteristics, survival, and EMAST status were examined.

Results: Snail1 overexpression was detected in tumor tissues in 32% of all examined patients and its positive expression was related to metastasis (p=0.001) and EMAST+ phenotype (P=0.017). Further, positive Snail1 expression correlates with poor overall survival in CRC patients (P=0.01).

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that Snail1 overexpression is not only associated with EMAST but also with clinicopathological variables of poor prognosis. These results indicate that Snail1 expression levels may be useful for establishing novel therapeutic strategies and could help survival improvement in CRC patients.

Keywords: Colorectal cancer; Elevated microsatellite alteration at selected tetranucleotide repeats (EMAST); Snail1; Survival.