Expression and Clinical Significance of Cytokeratin-19 and Thymidine Kinase-1 in Advanced Gastrointestinal Cancer

Clinical Significance and Role of TK1, CEA, CA 19-9 and CA 72-4 levels in Diagnosis of Colorectal Cancers

To explore the diagnostic value, pre-operative serum thymidine kinase 1(TK1), CEA, CA 19-9 and CA 72-4 levels were measured in 106 patients with colorectal carcinoma (53 colon and 53 rectal carcinoma patients) and 53 healthy controls. Sandwich Elisa, biotin-labeled antibody kit was used for TK1, and other tumor markers were measured using electro-chemiluminescence. Serum TK1 levels were significantly higher in CRC than in healthy controls (p<0.05) and showed significant associations with tumor stage, histopathological grade, lymph node status and metastasis (p<0.01). TK1 showed the highest (0.824-0.862) area under receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) in comparison to other markers, and the AUC of the panel of combination tests performed even better (0.935-0.952). Significant variation was observed between the single biomarker test and their combination (Z test, p<0.01) and the Hosmer-Lemeshow test showed an adequate model of calibration. The algorithm based on combination of TK1, CEA, CA19-9 and CA72-4 can improve the diagnostic efficiency in CRC patients.

Identification of Biomarkers Correlated with the TNM Staging and Overall Survival of Patients with Bladder Cancer

Objective: To identify candidate biomarkers correlated with clinical prognosis of patients with bladder cancer (BC). Methods: Weighted gene co-expression network analysis was applied to build a co-expression network to identify hub genes correlated with tumor node metastasis (TNM) staging of BC patients. Functional enrichment analysis was conducted to functionally annotate the hub genes. Protein-protein interaction network analysis of hub genes was performed to identify the interactions among the hub genes. Survival analyses were conducted to characterize the role of hub genes on the survival of BC patients. Gene set enrichment analyses were conducted to find the potential mechanisms involved in the tumor proliferation promoted by hub genes. Results: Based on the results of topological overlap measure based clustering and the inclusion criteria, top 50 hub genes were identified. Hub genes were enriched in cell proliferation associated gene ontology terms (mitotic sister chromatid segregation, mitotic cell cycle and, cell cycle, etc.) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways (cell cycle, Oocyte meiosis, etc.). 17 hub genes were found to interact with ≥5 of the hub genes. Survival analysis of hub genes suggested that lower expression of MMP11, COL5A2, CDC25B, TOP2A, CENPF, CDCA3, TK1, TPX2, CDCA8, AEBP1, and FOXM1were associated with better overall survival of BC patients. BC samples with higher expression of hub genes were enriched in gene sets associated with P53 pathway, apical junction, mitotic spindle, G2M checkpoint, and myogenesis, etc. Conclusions: We identified several candidate biomarkers correlated with the TNM staging and overall survival of BC patients. Accordingly, they might be used as potential diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets with clinical utility.