Objectives: To examine the expression of ALDOB in gastric cancer (GC) tissue and to reveal its potential clinicopathological and prognostic significance.
Materials and methods: We screened for genes that were differentially expressed between GC and nontumor tissues using a microarray, specifically the Affymetrix U133 Plus 2.0 Array platform. We then verified the transcriptional and translational levels of ALDOB by performing quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC). In addition, a merged data set based on the Gene Expression Omnibus was generated and a survival analysis performed.
Results: The microarray analysis revealed that ALDOB was downregulated (more than sevenfold) in GC compared with nontumor tissue. Both qRT-PCR and IHC validated the decrease of ALDOB in GC tissue. Moreover, we found that the expression of ALDOB was significantly related to tumor-invasion depth, lymph-node metastasis, distant metastasis, and TNM stage. The survival analysis, based on the IHC and merged data set, indicated that the overall survival was better in patients with high ALDOB expression. The Cox regression analysis showed that ALDOB expression was an independent prognostic factor for GC.
Conclusion: The expression of ALDOB in GC tissue was significantly related to the clinicopathological features and prognosis of the disease, thus suggesting that ALDOB could act as a novel molecular marker for GC.
Keywords: ALDOB; gastric cancer; microarray analysis; molecular marker.