G protein-coupled receptor LGR6 is an independent risk factor for colon adenocarcinoma

Abstract

LGR6 is a member of the G protein-coupled receptor family that plays a tumor-suppressive role in colon cancer. However, the relationship between LGR6 expression in patients and clinicopathological factors remains unclear. This study aimed to clarify whether the expression level of LGR6 is correlated with colon adenocarcinoma progression. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect LGR6 expression in colon adenoma tissues (n = 21), colon adenocarcinoma tissues (n = 156), and adjacent normal tissues (n = 124). The expression levels of LGR6 in colon adenoma and adenocarcinoma were significantly higher than those in normal colon epithelial tissues (P<0.001). Low LGR6 expression predicted a short overall survival in patients with colon adenocarcinoma (log-rank test, P = 0.016). Univariate and multivariate survival analyses showed that, in addition to N and M classification, LGR6 expression served as an independent prognostic factor. Thus, low expression of LGR6 can be used as an independent prognostic parameter in patients with colon adenocarcinoma.

Keywords

LGR6 / colon adenocarcinoma / immunohistochemistry / prognosis

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (Nos. 2016YFC1302103, 2015CB553906, and 2013CB910501); the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 81230051, 81472734, 31170711, 81321003, and 30830048); the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (No. 7120002); the 111 Project of the Ministry of Education, Peking University (Nos. BMU20120314 and BMU20130364); and the Leading Academic Discipline Project of Beijing Education Bureau to Hongquan Zhang.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Wenjing Wang, Shigang Ding, Hejun Zhang, Jun Li, Jun Zhan, and Hongquan Zhang declare no conflicts of interest. All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (the ethical committee of Peking University Health Science Center, China) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients enrolled in the study.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11684-018-0633-0 and is accessible for authorized users.

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