The Expression of Tripartite Motif Protein 36 and β-Catenin Correlates with the Prognosis of Esophageal Cancer

AIMS: Tripartite motif protein 36 (TRIM36) plays a tumor-suppressive role in prostate cancer. However, there is little information on the clinical relevance of TRIM36 expression in esophageal cancer (ESCA). METHODS: TRIM36 expression was analyzed by using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) ESCA dataset as well as by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and immunohistochemical (IHC) staining on samples from our hospital. RESULTS: In the current study, the analysis of TCGA ESCA dataset suggested the decreased expression of TRIM36 in ESCA tissues. Further analyses on samples from our hospital demonstrated that TRIM36 was significantly downregulated in ESCA tissues than in the noncancerous controls at both the mRNA and protein levels. Moreover, gene set enrichment analysis on TCGA ESCA dataset suggested that TRIM36 expression was inversely correlated with the β-catenin pathway. IHC staining data showed that 66.25% (53/80) and 51.25% (41/80) of ESCA cases had a low expression of TRIM36 and a high expression of β-catenin, respectively. By Fisher's exact test, we found that TRIM36 protein expression was significantly correlated with tumor size (P = 0.0104), tumor stage (P = 0.0169), lymph node metastasis (P = 0.0021), vital status (P = 0.0443), and β-catenin expression (P = 0.0329). These findings suggest the potential clinical significance of TRIM36 in ESCA. Kaplan–Meier and log-rank test demonstrated that a low expression of TRIM6 and a high expression of β-catenin were associated with poor overall survival of ESCA patients. CONCLUSIONS: Our study provides evidence for the prognostic value of TRIM36 in ESCA.