Abstract
Background
Glutathione peroxidase 2 (GPX2) is an antioxidant enzyme with an important role in tumor progression in various cancers. However, the clinical significance of GPX2 in lung adenocarcinoma has not been clarified.
Methods
Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to analyze GPX2 mRNA expression. Then, we conducted immunohistochemistry (IHC) to assess GPX2 expression in specimens acquired from 351 patients with lung adenocarcinoma who underwent surgery at Kyushu University from 2003 to 2012. We investigated the association between GPX2 expression and clinicopathological characteristics and further analyzed the prognostic relevance.
Results
qRT-PCR revealed that GPX2 mRNA expression was notably higher in tumor cells than in normal tissues. IHC revealed that high GPX2 expression (n = 175, 49.9%) was significantly correlated with male sex, smoking, advanced pathological stage, and the presence of pleural, lymphatic, and vascular invasion. Patients with high GPX2 expression exhibited significantly shorter recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival. Multivariate analysis identified high GPX2 expression as an independent prognostic factor of RFS.
Conclusions
GPX2 expression was significantly associated with pathological malignancy. It is conceivable that high GPX2 expression reflects tumor malignancy. Therefore, high GPX2 expression is a significant prognostic factor of poor prognosis for completely resected lung adenocarcinoma.
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Acknowledgment
We thank Joe Barber, Jr., PhD, from Edanz (https://jp.edanz.com/ac) for editing a draft of this manuscript.
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10434_2024_15116_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
Nrf2 expression in lung adenocarcinoma specimens. Examples of Nrf2 staining with intensity scores of (a) 0, (b) 1, and (c) 2. Scale bar: 200 μm. Nrf2, nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2; IS, intensity score (PDF 78 kb)
10434_2024_15116_MOESM2_ESM.pdf
The correlation between GPX2 and NFE2L2 expression in lung adenocarcinoma as determined by GSEA using a dataset from TCGA (a). Nrf2 expression in patients with surgically resected lung adenocarcinoma and high (n = 30) or low GPX2 (n = 30) expression on IHC analysis (b). GPX2, glutathione peroxidase 2; GSEA, gene set enrichment analysis; IHC, immunohistochemistry; Nrf2, nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2; TCGA, The Cancer Genome Atlas (PDF 77 kb)
10434_2024_15116_MOESM3_ESM.pdf
GPX2 expression in normal lung tissue and lung adenocarcinoma tissue in TCGA analysis (a). Kaplan–Meier curves of overall survival in patients with surgically resected lung adenocarcinoma according to GPX2 expression in TCGA analysis (b). GPX2, glutathione peroxidase 2; TCGA, The Cancer Genome Atlas (PDF 53 kb)
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Hashinokuchi, A., Matsubara, T., Ono, Y. et al. Clinical and Prognostic Significance of Glutathione Peroxidase 2 in Lung Adenocarcinoma. Ann Surg Oncol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1245/s10434-024-15116-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1245/s10434-024-15116-z