Expression and clinical significance of DNA-PKcs in colon adenocarcinoma tissues

RUI Hongqing; YUAN Lidan; LIU Jian; WEI Cuizhen; PUYANG Yongqiang; ZHOU Xiaohua

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1009-0460.2023.12.007

Abstract：Objective To explore the expression characteristics of protein kinase,DNA-activated,catalytic subunit(DNA-PKcs)in colon adenocarcinoma(COAD)tissues and its predictive value in the prognosis of COAD.Methods The expression of DNA-PKcs was analyzed in 275 COAD tissues and 349 normal control tissues through the GEPIA online website.Kaplan-Meier Plotter online website was used to analyze the relationship between DNA-PKcs expression and survival in 1061 COAD patients.Furthermore,58 COAD patients who underwent surgical resection treatment in our hospital from January 2019 to June 2021 were selected as the study subjects.Immunohistochemical detection of DNA-PKcs expression in COAD tissues and analysis of its relationship with clinical pathological features were carried out.Pearson correlation analysis was employed to evaluate the correlation of DNA-PKcs with carcinoembryonic antigen(CEA)and carbohydrate antigen 199(CA199).The predictive value of DNA-PKcs,CEA and CA199 in poor prognosis of COAD was investigated using the receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve.Results The GEPIA online website showed that the DNA-PKcs expression in COAD tissues was higher than that of the normal controls(P<0.05).The median overall survival of 789 patients with low expression of DNA-PKcs was 134 months,better than the 106 months of 272 patients with high expression(P<0.05).The expression of DNA-PKcs was compared in COAD patients with different TNM stages,differentiation levels,nerve invasion,infiltration depth,recurrence and lymph node metastasis,and the differences were statistically significant(P<0.05).DNA-PKcs was positively correlated with CEA and CA199(r=0.431,0.381,P<0.001).The area under the poor prognosis curve of COAD predicted by the combination of the three indicators was 0.876(95%CI:0.763-0.948),with a sensitivity of 0.862 and a specificity of 0.897.Conclusion High expression of DNA-PKcs is involved in the malignant progression of COAD.The combined detection of DNA-PKcs,CEA and CA199 can significantly improve the predictive efficacy of poor prognosis in COAD,and has high reference value for the evaluation of poor prognosis in COAD.