CYR61 (CCN1) is a metastatic biomarker of gastric cardia adenocarcinoma

// Jing Wei 1 , Guanzhen Yu 2 , Genbao Shao 1 , Aiqin Sun 1 , Miao Chen 1, 3 , Wannian Yang 1 , Qiong Lin 1 1 School of Medicine, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, China 2 Changzheng Hospital, Shanghai, China 3 The Affiliated Hospital, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, China Correspondence to: Qiong Lin, e-mail: humandock11@gmail.com Wannian Yang, e-mail: sh3px1@yahoo.com Keywords: gastric cardia adenocarcinoma, CYR61, prognostic biomarker, metastasis, cell migration Received: January 04, 2016     Accepted: March 31, 2016     Published: April 20, 2016 ABSTRACT Gastric cardia adenocarcinoma (GCA) is the most aggressive subtype of gastric cancer with a high metastatic rate. In this report, we collected tumor tissue samples from 214 GCA cases and examined expression of CYR61, a target gene product of the Hippo-YAP/TAZ pathway, in the GCA tumors by immunohistochemical (IHC) staining using the tissue microarray assay (TMA). The results have shown that CYR61 is overexpressed in 44% of the GCA tumor samples. Expression of CYR61 is inversely correlated with cumulative survival of GCA patients ( p <0.001) and significantly associated only with metastatic pathological categories (with N category, p =0.052; with TNM stage, p =0.001). Furthermore, knockdown of CYR61 in gastric cancer AGS cells impairs the cancer cell migration and invasion, suggesting a driver role of CYR61 in metastasis. Thus, our studies have established CYR61 as a metastatic biomarker for prediction of poor prognosis of GCA and provided a potential molecular target for anti-metastatic therapy of GCA.