Expression of nectin 3: Novel prognostic marker of lung adenocarcinoma.

Background:   We investigated the prognostic significance of the immunoglobulin-like cell adhesion molecule nectin-3, a regulator of the formation of adherens junctions, in human lung adenocarcinoma.

Methods:   Tumor-tissue samples of 127 patients with surgically resected lung adenocarcinoma were used for analysis of the proteins expression by immunohistochemistry.

Results:   Of the 127 patients, 25% showed membranous expression of nectin-3, and others showed negative or cytoplasmic expression. Membranous expression of nectin-3 was found to be a prognostic factor for decreased overall survival on univariate analysis (P = 0.001). Multivariate Cox proportional hazards model analyses also revealed that membranous expression of nectin-3 turned out to be an independent prognostic factor (P = 0.048). Moreover, in tumors expressing membranous nectin-3, some tumors did not co-localize with E-cadherin, and the patients of such tumors showed poorer prognosis than other patients for overall survival on univariate analysis (P < 0.03). Conversely, membranous expression of nectin-3 with E-cadherin co-localization was found to associate with good prognosis of patients.

Conclusion:   Membranous expression of nectin-3 was an independent prognostic factor of lung adenocarcinoma, and it might play an important role in progression of the tumor.