Role of kinesin family member 14 in disease monitoring and prognosis in patients with gastrointestinal cancer

Kinesin family member 14 (KIF14) is not only involved in numerous essential biological activities, such as cytokinesis and myelination, but also regulates several malignant behaviors and progression of cancer. However, its role in gastrointestinal cancer is rarely reported. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the association of KIF14 expression with disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) times in patients with gastrointestinal cancer. A total of 101 patients with gastrointestinal cancer (36 patients with gastric cancer and 65 patients with colorectal cancer) were retrospectively reviewed, and their cancer samples were collected to detect the protein and mRNA expression levels of KIF14 using immunohistochemistry and reverse transcription-quantitative PCR, respectively. KIF14 protein expression was increased in cancer tissues compared with adjacent tissues (all P<0.001). The protein expression levels of KIF14 were positively associated with T stage (P<0.001), distant metastases (P=0.007) and TNM stage (P<0.001), while KIF14 mRNA expression was positively associated with T stage (P<0.001), lymph node metastasis (P=0.004), distant metastases (P=0.001) and TNM stage (P<0.001). High protein and mRNA expression levels of KIF14 were associated with worse DFS (P<0.001) and OS (P=0.016) times. In addition, high KIF14 protein expression independently predicted unfavorable DFS times (P=0.007). Subgroup analysis revealed that in patients with gastric cancer, KIF14 expression was associated with DFS and OS times, while in patients with colorectal cancer, KIF14 expression was only associated with DFS time, but not with OS time. In conclusion, KIF14 expression was not only associated with advanced pathological differentiation and TNM stage but was also associated with poor survival time in patients with gastrointestinal cancer. These results indicate the potential of KIF14 as a biomarker for gastrointestinal cancer prognosis.