Overexpression and clinical significance of MYC-associated zinc finger protein in pancreatic carcinoma

This study aimed to investigate the expression and clinical significance of MYC-associated zinc finger protein (MAZ) in pancreatic carcinoma (PC), and the biological functions of MAZ in PC cells. MAZ expression was detected in 57 PC tissues and 41 paired adjacent nontumor tissues by immunohistochemistry. Compared to the expression in adjacent nontumor tissues, MAZ was significantly higher expressed in PC tissues (P<0.0001). In addition, MAZ expression had a significant correlation with certain clinical characteristics of PC patients, such as age, tumor diameter, tumor number, and the serum level of CA199 (P<0.05). The survival analysis showed that the survival time of PC patients with high expression of MAZ was significantly lower than patients with low expression of MAZ (P=0.0365). After MAZ was knocked down in PANC-1 cells by RNA interference, the cells’ ability to proliferate, invade, and migrate was decreased significantly (P<0.01). Moreover, MAZ expression was found to be associated with Ki-67, a cell proliferation marker, in PC tissues, further supporting the idea that MAZ promotes PC cell proliferation. Our study clarifies an oncogenic role of MAZ in pathogenesis of PC and provides MAZ as a biomarker in the treatment and prognosis of PC.