aPKCλ/ι is a beneficial prognostic marker for pancreatic neoplasms.

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer is a lethal disease. Overall survival is typically 6 months from diagnosis. Determination of prognostic factors in pancreatic cancer that would allow identification of patients who could potentially benefit from aggressive treatment is important. However, until date, there are no established reliable prognostic factors for pancreatic cancer patients. Herein, we propose a beneficial biomarker which is significantly correlated with the prognosis in pancreatic cancer patients. Atypical protein kinase C λ/ι (aPKCλ/ι) is overexpressed and has been implicated in the progression of several cancers. We tested the expression levels of aPKCλ/ι in two types of pancreatic neoplasm, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMNs), by immunohistochemistry. Examination of the aPKCλ/ι expression levels in surgically resected specimens of PDCA (n = 115) demonstrated that the expression levels of aPKCλ/ιin PDAC had prognostic implications, independent of the Tumor-Node-Metastasis classification and World Health Organization tumor grade. In the case of IPMNs (n = 46) also, the expression levels of aPKCλ/ιin IPMN were found to be of prognostic importance, independent of the World Health Organization histological grade or morphological type. Interestingly, high expression levels of aPKCλ/ι were significantly correlated with a worse histological grade (p = 0.010) and advanced stage of the tumor (p = 0.0050) in IPMN patients. These findings suggest that high expression levels of aPKCλ/ι could be involved in the malignant transformation of IPMNs. Based on these observations, we propose the expression level of aPKCλ/ι as a prognostic marker common to different types of pancreatic neoplasms.

• Authors: Shingo Kato, Kazunori Akimoto, Yoji Nagashima, Hitoshi Ishiguro, Kensuke Kubota, Noritoshi Kobayashi, Kunihiro Hosono, Seitaro Watanabe, Yusuke Sekino, Takamitsu Sato, Kazunori Sasaki, Noboru Nakaigawa, Yoshinobu Kubota, Yoshiaki Inayama, Itaru Endo, Shigeo Ohno, Shin Maeda, Atsushi Nakajima
• Journal: Pancreatology : official journal of the International Association of Pancreatology (IAP) ... [et al.] (Pancreatology) 2013 Jul-Aug Vol. 13 Issue 4 Pg. 360-8 ISSN: 1424-3911 [Electronic] Switzerland
• PMID: 23890134 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)
• Copyright: Copyright © 2013 IAP and EPC. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Chemical References

• Biomarkers, Tumor
• Isoenzymes
• Protein Kinase C
• protein kinase C lambda

Topics

• Adenocarcinoma, Mucinous (metabolism, pathology)
• Aged
• Biomarkers, Tumor (metabolism)
• Carcinoma, Pancreatic Ductal (metabolism, pathology)
• Cell Transformation, Neoplastic
• Female
• Humans
• Immunohistochemistry
• Isoenzymes (metabolism)
• Male
• Middle Aged
• Pancreatic Neoplasms (metabolism, pathology)
• Prognosis
• Proportional Hazards Models
• Protein Kinase C (metabolism)