Low expression of adenomatous polyposis coli 2 correlates with aggressive features and poor prognosis in colorectal cancer

Currently, there are no relevant findings on the diagnostic and prognostic roles of adenomatous polyposis coli 2 (APC2) in colorectal cancer (CRC). This study investigated the clinical value of APC2 dysregulation in the prognosis of CRC. Immunohistochemical scores obtained from tissue microarrays were used to quantify the expression of APC2 protein in 201 CRC tissues and 139 adjacent normal tissues. A chi-squared test was performed to analyze the association between APC2 expression and various clinical characteristics. Differences in 5-year survival between groups were analyzed. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was generated to investigate the potential association between APC2 and CRC diagnosis. Compared with adjacent normal tissues, APC2 was downregulated in CRC tissues (P = 0.0004). Survival analyses revealed that CRC patients with high APC2 expression (96.74%) obtained better 5-year survival rates than those with low APC2 expression (88.07%). CRC patients with low APC2 expression exhibited obvious lymphovascular invasion (P = 0.010), lymph node metastasis (P = 0.007), and high tumor node metastasis (TNM) stage (P = 0.007). Furthermore, ROC curves confirmed that APC2 was associated with lymphovascular invasion (P = 0.004), lymph node metastasis (P = 0.002), and TNM staging (P = 0.002). In summary, low APC2 expression in CRC tissues was associated with poor prognosis and may be a useful biomarker for the prognosis and clinical classification of CRC.