GRP78 expression and prognostic significance in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma treated with neoadjuvant therapy versus surgery first

Yi Tat Tong, Hua Wang, Dongguang Wei, Laura R. Prakash, Michael Kim, Ching Wei D. Tzeng, Jeffrey E. Lee, Asif Rashid, Eugene J. Koay, Robert A. Wolff, Anirban Maitra, Matthew HG Katz, Huamin Wang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78) plays an essential role in protein folding, transportation, and degradation, thus regulates ER homeostasis and promotes cell survival, proliferation and invasion. GRP78 expression in PDAC patients who received neoadjuvant therapy has not been reported.

METHODS: This retrospective study of resected PDAC patients included 125 patients treated with neoadjuvant therapy (NAT) and 140 patients treated with surgery first (SF). The expression of GRP78 was evaluated by immunohistochemistry on tissue microarrays and the results were correlated with clinicopathologic parameters and survival.

RESULTS: GRP78 expression was higher in SF patients compared to NAT patients (P < 0.001). In SF cohort, the median disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) for patients with GRP78-positive tumors were 11.2 months and 25.0 months, respectively, compared to DFS of 52.1 months (P = 0.008) and OS of 69.5 months (P = 0.02) for those with GRP78-negative tumors. GRP78 expression correlated with higher frequency of recurrent/metastasis (P = 0.045). In NAT cohort, GRP78 expression correlated with shorter OS (P = 0.03), but not DFS (P = 0.08). GRP78 expression was an independent prognosticator for both DFS (P = 0.02) and OS (P = 0.049) in SF cohort and was an independent prognosticator for OS (P = 0.03), but not for DFS (P = 0.06) in NAT cohort by multivariate analysis.

CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed that GRP78 expression in NAT cohort is lower than that in SF cohort. GRP78 expression correlated with shorter survival in both SF and NAT patients. Our findings suggest that targeting GRP78 may help to improve the prognosis in PDAC patients.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1378-1385
Number of pages8
JournalPancreatology
Volume21
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2021

Keywords

  • GRP78
  • Neoadjuvant therapy
  • Pancreatic cancer
  • Survival
  • Tumor response grading

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism
  • Hepatology
  • Endocrinology

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