AI Article Synopsis

  • Transcobalamin (TCN1) is a protein that binds vitamin B12 and is found at high levels in cancer tissues, particularly in colon cancer, linking it to aggressive tumor behavior and poor prognosis.
  • The study revealed that TCN1's expression is significantly elevated in colon cancer tissues, correlating with advanced stages and worse patient outcomes based on analyses like Western blotting and immunohistochemistry.
  • TCN1's expression decreases after neoadjuvant chemotherapy, suggesting that it could serve as a promising biomarker for assessing colon cancer progression and treatment response.

Article Abstract

Transcobalamin (TCN1) is a vitamin B12 (cobalamin)-binding protein that regulates cobalamin homeostasis. Recent studies and bioinformatic analyses have found that TCN1 is highly expressed in cancer tissues and is associated with tumour aggressiveness and poor prognosis. The present study aimed to detect TCN1 as a novel biomarker for prognosis and chemosensitivity of colon cancer. Next-generation sequencing showed that TCN1 was one of several upregulated mRNAs in colon cancer, which was verified by further bioinformatics analyses. Western blotting (n = 9) and quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR, n = 30) revealed that TCN1 was highly expressed in colon cancer tissues at both the protein and mRNA level. A total of 194 cases of colon cancer were examined by immunohistochemistry and revealed that TCN1 expression level was related to advanced stages (P < 0.005). Kaplan-Meier analysis verified that patients with lower TCN1 expression usually had longer overall survival (P = 0.008). In addition, TCN1 was highly expressed in pulmonary metastatic tumour tissues (n = 37, P = 0.025) and exhibited higher levels in right-sided colon cancer than in left-sided colon cancer (P = 0.029). TCN1 expression in specimens that had received neoadjuvant chemotherapy decreased compared with that in colonoscopy biopsy tissues (n = 42, P = 0.009). Further bioinformatics analyses verified that apoptosis pathways might have a role in high TCN1 expression. All the studies revealed that TCN1 expression in colon cancer was significantly associated with malignant biological behaviour. Therefore, TCN1 could be used as a novel biomarker for colon cancer aggressiveness and prognosis and might also be a potential biomarker for predicting neoadjuvant chemosensitivity.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7371683PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68150-8DOI Listing

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