Clinical relevance of Elf-1 overexpression in endometrial carcinoma.

Abstract

OBJECTIVES:

Elf-1 is a member of the Ets transcription factor family that regulates the genes involved in cellular growth and differentiation. Enhanced expression of Elf-1 has been reported in prostate cancer, breast cancer, and osteosarcoma.

METHODS:

To elucidate the involvement of Elf-1 in endometrial carcinogenesis, we analyzed serial frozen tissue sections from 31 patients with endometrial carcinoma and 20 patients with normal endometria for Elf-1 protein expression, using fluorescent immunohistochemistry. We analyzed the relationship between the percentages of Elf-1-stained cells and patient characteristics, including clinical stage, histological grade, presence of invasion to greater than one-half the myometrium, clinical outcome, and survival rate.

RESULTS:

Elf-1 was weakly detected in some normal endometria in the proliferative phase (0-18.9%) and other normal endometria in the secretory phase (0-28.5%). There was, however, abundant Elf-1 immunoreactivity in the nucleus of the endometrial carcinoma cells along with a little cytoplasmic staining. Scoring on the basis of the percentage of nuclear-positive cells indicated that nuclear Elf-1 expression was significantly associated with PCNA-labeling index, clinical stage, histological grade, the presence of invasion to greater than one-half the myometrium, and clinical outcome (P < 0.01, respectively). Survival data were available for all patients and demonstrated that Elf-1 expression was significantly associated with poor prognosis (P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS:

Our results demonstrate that Elf-1 expression in endometrial carcinoma correlates with the malignant potential of this tumor.

• Authors: Noriyuki Takai, Tami Miyazaki, Masakazu Nishida, Sujie Shang, Kaei Nasu, Isao Miyakawa
• Journal: Gynecologic oncology (Gynecol Oncol) Vol. 89 Issue 3 Pg. 408-13 (Jun 2003) ISSN: 0090-8258 [Print] United States
• PMID: 12798703 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)

Chemical References

• DNA-Binding Proteins
• Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen
• Transcription Factors

Topics

• DNA-Binding Proteins (biosynthesis, metabolism)
• Endometrial Neoplasms (metabolism, pathology)
• Female
• Humans
• Neoplasm Invasiveness
• Neoplasm Staging
• Prognosis
• Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen (metabolism)
• Transcription Factors (biosynthesis, metabolism)