Decreased expression of V‐set and immunoglobulin domain containing 1 (VSIG1) is associated with poor prognosis in primary gastric cancer

Background: To date, the significance of altered expression of V-set and immunoglobulin domain containing 1 (VSIG1) in gastric cancer has not yet been elucidated. Methods: We examined VSIG1 expression in 30 paired gastric cancer tissues and noncancerous gastric mucosa as well as in 5 gastric cancer cell lines by real-time PCR and Western blotting. In addition, we analyzed VSIG1 expression in 232 gastric adenocarcinoma samples by immunohistochemistry. Results: VSIG1 expression was significantly reduced at both the mRNA and protein levels in gastric cancer tissues. Immunohistochemistry revealed that VSIG1 expression was completely lost in 126 out of the 232 (54.3%) patient samples and remarkably reduced in another 106 (45.7%) patients. Negative VSIG1 expression was significantly correlated with tumor size (P ¼ 0.007), T (P ¼ 0.023), and M stage (P ¼ 0.037). Importantly, loss of VSIG1 expression was significantly correlated with poor overall survival (OS, P < 0.001) and disease-free survival (DFS, P ¼ 0.006) in gastric cancer patients. Cox regression analyses showed that VSIG1 expression was an independent predictor of OS (P ¼ 0.002) and DFS (P ¼ 0.039). Conclusions: Our findings suggest that silencing VSIG1 may play an important role in gastric carcinogenesis and that VSIG1 may serve as a prognostic marker as well as a potential therapeutic target for gastric cancer. J. Surg. Oncol. 2012;106:286–293. 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.