Expression of Formin-like 2 and cortactin in gallbladder adenocarcinoma and their clinical significance.

Objective: To investigate the expressions of Formin-like 2 (FMNL2) and Cortactin (CTTN) in gallbladder adenocarcinoma (GBAC) and their associations with the clinicopathological characteristics of the patients.

Methods: The expressions of FMNL2 and CTTN were detected with immunohistochemistry (Max Vision) in 105 GBAC tissues and 40 normal gallbladder tissues.

Results: The positive expression rates of FMNL2 and CTTN in normal gallbladder tissues were 25% and 20%, different from the positive expression rates of 84.76% and 86.67% in GBAC tissues ( < 0.001). The positive expression rate of FMNL2 and CTTN in GBAC correlated with tumor differentiation, tumor-node-metastasis (TNM), lymph node metastasis (LNM), and distant metastasis. FMNL2 expression was positively correlated with CTTN expression. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that the overall survival time of patients with positive expressions group of FMNL2 and CTTN was significantly shorter than that of the negative expression group. Cox multivariate analysis showed that TNM, LNM, distant metastasis, and positive expression of FMNL2 and CTTN were independent factors influencing the prognosis of patients with GBAC ( < 0.05).

Conclusion: The positive expression of FMNL2 and CTTN in GBAC is significantly increased, which may be related to the occurrence and development of GBAC. The combined detection of FMNL2 and CTTN may provide a scientific theoretical basis for the early diagnosis of GBAC, the development of new antitumor drugs, and the search for new targets of biotherapy.