Combined detection of dickkopf-1 subtype classification autoantibodies as biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of non-small cell lung cancer

The presence of autoantibodies as a potential prognostic biomarker for breast cancer

The presence of autoantibodies is closely associated with the occurrence and development of cancer. Autoantibodies can be used as biomarkers for early breast cancer diagnosis. However, the relationship between autoantibodies and the prognosis of breast cancer patients remains elusive. This retrospective study aimed to investigate the correlation between the presence of autoantibodies and outcomes in breast cancer patients. This study included a total of 155 patients from People's Hospital of Henan University (Zhengzhou, China) who were diagnosed with breast cancer from January 2017 to December 2021. The enrolled patients' clinicopathological features were collected, and 88 patients were ultimately involved in the analysis. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were performed to search for the risk factors related to the poor prognosis of breast cancer patients. The association between the presence of autoantibodies and patients' survival was analysed using Kaplan-Meier curves. After screening, there were 38 autoantibody-positive cases and 50 autoantibody-negative cases. Breast cancer patients with autoantibody-positive had a 57% lower risk of death compared with autoantibody-negative patients. Multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated that the presence of autoantibody could be a potential prognostic predictor for breast cancer, independent of age, histological grade, pathological classification, clinical stage, and the expression levels of hormonal receptors. In addition, autoantibody-positive breast cancer patients had longer progression-free survival and overall survival compared with autoantibody-negative cases. Positive autoantibody was found as an independent biomarker of better prognosis in breast cancer patients, providing a new strategy for the prognostic assessment of breast cancer patients.

Prognostic value of cancer-associated fibroblasts-related genes in lung adenocarcinoma

Background

The incidence of lung adenocarcinoma is in the forefront of malignant tumors in the world. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of cancer-associated fibroblast-related genes (CAFRGs) in the occurrence, diagnosis and development of lung adenocarcinoma.

Methods

RNA data and corresponding clinical information of lung adenocarcinoma patients were acquired from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Consensus clustering was performed to identify different molecular subgroups. The tumor immune states of different subgroups were determined by Estimation of STromal and Immune cells in MAlignant Tumor tissues using Expression data (ESTIMATE; https://bioinformatics.mdanderson.org/estimate/index.html), microenvironment cell populations (MCP)-counter (which can reliably quantify the abundance of eight immune cell populations and two stromal cell populations), and single sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) analyses. In order to elucidate the potential mechanism of CAFRGs, functional enrichment analysis including gene ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genome (KEGG), and GSEA analysis were performed on the differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm and multivariate Cox regression analysis were used to construct the prognostic risk model, which was verified by lung adenocarcinoma data from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) dataset GSE37745.

Results

This study identified two molecular subgroups with significant differences in survival. High immunoscore and immune cell infiltration were more common in the subgroup with better prognosis. GO and KEGG analysis showed that DEGs between the two different subgroups were mainly concentrated in the mitotic cell cycle, cell proliferation, vascular development, and humoral immune response, adaptive immune-related pathways. GSEA analysis indicated that RNA degradation and P53 signaling pathway might be related to the increased invasiveness of lung adenocarcinoma. Risk models based on CAFRGs have demonstrated potent potential for predicting lung adenocarcinoma survival and have been validated in validation cohorts. The nomogram combined with risk model and clinical characteristics can predict the prognosis of patients with lung adenocarcinoma.

Conclusions

The expression of CAFRGs is related to tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) of lung adenocarcinoma patients, and can predict the prognosis of lung adenocarcinoma patients.

Correlation of NNMT and DKK1 Protein Expression With Clinicopathological Characteristics and Prognosis of Breast Cancer

Background

Nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT) and Dickkopf-1 (DKK1) play an important role in the development of breast cancer, and the purpose of this study was designed to examine the clinical and prognostic significance of NNMT and DKK1 in breast cancer.

Methods

The GEPIA2 database was used to evaluate the expression and survival of NNMT mRNA and DKK1 mRNA of breast cancer. Then an immunohistochemical study was carried out on 374 cases of breast tissue to identify the protein expression and significance of NNMT and DKK1. Next, the prognostic significance of DKK1 in breast cancer was explored by COX and Kaplan-Meier models.

Results

Protein NNMT expression was correlated with lymph node metastasis and histological grade (P < .05) while protein DKK1 expression was related to tumor size, pT stage, histological grade, and Ki-67 (P < .05). Protein DKK1 was related to disease-specific survival (DSS), and low DKK1 expression indicated a poor prognosis of breast cancer patients (P < .05). Combined expression of protein NNMT and protein DKK1 predicted different prognosis of DSS (P < .05).

Conclusions

Nicotinamide N-methyltransferase and DKK1 were linked to breast cancer malignancy and invasion. Breast cancer patients with low DKK1 expression had a worse prognosis. Oncotypes of NNMT and DKK1 expression predicted patient outcomes.

Expression and Role of Dickkopf-1 (Dkk1) in Tumors: From the Cells to the Patients

Dickkopf-1 (Dkk1) is a secretory antagonist of the classical Wnt signaling pathway. Many studies have reported that Dkk1 is abnormally expressed in tumor cells, and abnormal expression of Dkk1 can inhibit cell proliferation or induce apoptosis through pro-apoptotic factors, However, due to the differences in tumor environment and the complex regulatory mechanisms in different tumors, Dkk1 has different effects on the progression of different tumors. In many tumors, high expression of Dkk1 may promote tumor metastasis. However, Dkk1, which is highly expressed in other tumors, can inhibit tumor invasion and metastasis. More and more evidence shows that Dkk1 plays a complex and different role in tumor occurrence, development and metastasis in different tumor environments and through a variety of complex regulatory mechanisms. Therefore, Dkk1 may not only be a useful biomarker of metastasis, but also a target for studying the metabolic mechanism of tumor cells and treating tumors in many tumor types. Therefore, this article reviews the research progress on the expression, mechanism and function of Dkk1 in different tumors, and at the same time, based on the public database data, we made a further analysis of the expression of Dkk1 in different tumors.

Autoantibodies to tumor-associated antigens in lung cancer diagnosis

Lung cancer (LC) accounts for the majority of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Although screening the high-risk population by low-dose CT (LDCT) has reduced mortality, the cost and high false positivity rate has prevented its general diagnostic use. As such, better and more specific minimally invasive biomarkers are needed in general and for early LC detection, specifically. Autoantibodies produced by humoral immune response to tumor-associated antigens (TAA) are emerging as a promising noninvasive biomarker for LC. Given the low sensitivity of any one single autoantibody, a panel approach could provide a more robust and promising strategy to detect early stage LC. In this review, we summarize the background of TAA autoantibodies (TAAb) and the techniques currently used for identifying TAA, as well as recent findings of LC specific antigens and TAAb. This review provides guidance toward the development of accurate and reliable TAAb as immunodiagnostic biomarkers in the early detection of LC.

The Clinical Diagnostic and Prognostic Value of Dickkopf-1 in Cancer

The Wnt signaling pathway extensively participates in diverse processes such as embryonic development, maintenance of homeostasis and tumor pathogenesis. Dickkopf-1 (DKK1), a Wnt inhibitor, plays a vital role for over the past decades regarding its role in the regulation of several types of cancers. However, studies have shown that DKK1 is expressed differently in cancer and plays a role as a cancer-promoting factor or a tumor suppressor, which is worthy of further exploration. We herein study whether DKK1 is highly expressed in all cancers and plays a crucial role in promoting cancer. Furthermore, we discussed as to which stages of cancer development it plays in. Finally, the present detection methods were introduced and indicated the clinical application of DKK1 in tumor development.

Autoantibodies as diagnostic biomarkers for lung cancer: A systematic review

Lung cancer (LC) accounts for the largest number of tumor-related deaths worldwide. As the overall 5-year survival rate of LC is associated with its stages at detection, development of a cost-effective and noninvasive cancer screening method is necessary. We conducted a systematic review to evaluate the diagnostic values of single and panel tumor-associated autoantibodies (TAAbs) in patients with LC. This review included 52 articles with 64 single TAAbs and 19 with 20 panels of TAAbs. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) were the most common detection method. The sensitivities of single TAAbs for all stages of LC ranged from 3.1% to 92.9% (mean: 45.2%, median: 37.1%), specificities from 60.6% to 100% (mean: 88.1%, median: 94.9%), and AUCs from 0.416 to 0.990 (mean: 0.764, median: 0.785). The single TAAb with the most significant diagnostic value was the autoantibody against human epididymis secretory protein (HE4) with the maximum sensitivity 91% for NSCLC. The sensitivities of the panel of TAAbs ranged from 30% to 94.8% (mean: 76.7%, median: 82%), specificities from 73% to 100% (mean: 86.8%, median: 89.0%), and AUCs from 0.630 to 0.982 (mean: 0.821, median: 0.820), and the most significant AUC value in a panel (M13 Phage 908, 3148, 1011, 3052, 1000) was 0.982. The single TAAb with the most significant diagnostic calue for early stage LC, was the autoantibody against Wilms tumor protein 1 (WT1) with the maximum sensitivity of 90.3% for NSCLC and its sensitivity and specificity in a panel (T7 Phage 72, 91, 96, 252, 286, 290) were both above 90.0%. Single or TAAbs panels may be useful biomarkers for detecting LC patients at all stages or an early-stage in high-risk populations or health people, but the TAAbs panels showed higher detection performance than single TAAbs. The diagnostic value of the panel of six TAAbs, which is higher than the panel of seven TAAbs, may be used as potential biomarkers for the early detection of LC and can probably be used in combination with low-dose CT in the clinic.

The clinical significance of CXCL5 in non-small cell lung cancer

As a CXC-type chemokine, ENA78/CXCL5 is an important attractant for granulocytes by binding to its receptor CXCR2. Recent studies proved that CXCL5/CXCR2 axis plays an oncogenic role in many human cancers. However, the exact clinical significance of CXCL5 in lung cancer has not been well defined. Here, we found that the serum protein expression of CXCL5 was significantly increased in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) compared with that in healthy volunteers. Immunohistochemistry staining revealed that CXCL5 protein was higher in various lung cancer tissues compared with normal tissues. Moreover, CXCL5 expression correlated with histological grade, tumor size, and TNM stage in NSCLC. Elevated CXCL5 protein abundance predicted poor overall survival in adenocarcinoma patients. Further meta-analysis demonstrated that CXCL5 mRNA expression was also positively associated with tumor stage, lymph node metastasis, and worse survival. Kaplan–Meier plot analyses indicated high CXCL5 was associated with short overall survival and progression-free survival. Together, these results indicated that CXCL5 may be a potential biomarker for NSCLC.