Clinical significance of Wnt-induced secreted protein-1 (WISP-1/CCN4) in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Background/Aim: The expression of Wingless/int-1 (Wnt)-induced secreted protein-1 (WISP-1/CCN4), a member of the Cyr61-CTGF-Nov (CCN) family, has been examined in several types of cancer. However, the correlation between the WISP-1 expression and the clinical features of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remain to be elucidated. This study aimed to clarify the expression of WISP-1 protein in patients with ESCC and also to examine the function of WISP-1 in esophageal cancer cells in vitro. Patients and Methods: One-hundred and ninety patients with thoracic esophageal carcinoma underwent transthoracic subtotal esophagectomy-between 2005 and 2009. All patients that had received previous therapy were excluded and 105 out of the 190 ESCC samples were analyzed immunohistochemically using WISP-1 antibody. The expression of WISP-1 mRNA in esophageal cancer cell lines was analyzed by RT-PCR. Growth assay and invasion assays were performed using WISP-1 transfected cells. Results: The immunohistochemical analysis showed that WISP-1-positive cases were closely associated with tumor size, tumor type, lymph node metastasis and poor prognosis. There were significantly more WISP-1-positive infiltrative type tumors than expanding type tumors. In the esophageal cancer cell lines examined, only TE8 expressed WISP-1 mRNA. The growth of WISP-1- transfected cells was significantly increased in comparison to the control cells, but no differences in the invasion activity were observed between the transfected cells and control cells. Conclusion: The expression of WISP-1 may play an important role in the progression of ESCC. WISP-1 could therefore be a clinical marker for a poor prognosis in patients with ESCC and may also be a therapeutic target to control the progession of ESCC.