There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
Receptor EphB4 and the corresponding ligand ephrinB2 contribute to tumor growth in
various human tumors. This prompted us to study the expression and localization of
EphB4 and ephrinB2 in uterine cervical cancers to analyze the EphB4/ephrinB2 functions
against clinical backgrounds.
Immunohistochemistry and real-time RT-PCR have been done to determine the histoscores
and mRNA levels of EphB4 and ephrinB2, respectively, in sixty-two uterine cervical
cancer tissue samples. Patient prognoses were analyzed with a 36-month survival rate.
The localization of EphB4 and ephrinB2 was dominantly in the cancer cells of uterine
cervical cancers of all cases given. Both the histoscores and mRNA levels of EphB4
and ephrinB2 significantly increased with clinical stages (I<II<III+IV, p<0.001) in
uterine cervical cancers. The tumor sizes significantly correlated with the histoscore
and mRNA levels of EphB4 and ephrinB2. There were significant differences in histoscores
and mRNA levels of EphB4 and ephrinB2 in accordance with lymph node metastasis, but
not according to histopathological types. The 36-month survival rates of the 31 patients
with high EphB4 and ephrinB2 expression were poor (31% and 19%, respectively), while
survival rates for the other 31 patients with low EphB4 and ephrinB2 expression were
significantly higher (72% and 73%, respectively).
Coexpression of EphB4 and ephrinB2 increased with the disease advancement based on
clinical stage, lymph node metastasis, tumor size and with poor patient prognoses.
Therefore, EphB4/ephrinB2 expression might work on tumor advancement and coexpression
of the Eph/ephrin system may potentiate tumor progression leading to poor survival,
thus can be recognized as a novel prognostic indicator in the primary tumors of uterine
cervical cancers.