| 1. |
- Berntsson, Jonna, et al.
(författare)
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Expression of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) and its ligand PD-L1 in colorectal cancer : Relationship with sidedness and prognosis
- 2018
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Ingår i: OncoImmunology. - 2162-4011. ; 7:8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Expression of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) and its ligand PD-L1 has been demonstrated to confer a prognostic value in colorectal cancer (CRC), but no studies have investigated whether this association differs according to tumour location. In this study, immunohistochemical expression of PD-1 and PD-L1 was analysed in tissue microarrays with primary tumours from 557 incident CRC cases from a prospective population-based cohort. Univariable and multivariable Cox regression analyses, adjusted for age, sex, TNM stage, differentiation grade and vascular invasion, were applied to determine the impact of biomarker expression on 5-year overall survival (OS), in the entire cohort and in subgroup analysis of right colon, left colon, and rectum. High PD-L1 expression on tumour-infiltrating immune cells was an independent factor of a prolonged OS in the entire cohort (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.49; 95% confidence interval [CI] CI 0.35 – 0.68), and in tumours of the right colon (HR = 0.43; 95% CI 0.25 – 0.74) and the left colon (HR = 0.28; 95% CI 0.13 – 0.61), but not in rectal cancer. Tumour-specific PD-L1-expression was not prognostic, neither in the full cohort nor according to tumour location. High immune cell-specific PD-1 expression was associated with a prolonged OS in the entire cohort and in tumours of the right colon, but not in the left colon or rectum, and only in univariable analysis. In conclusion, these results demonstrate that immune cell-specific PD-L1 and PD-1 expression is prognostic in a site-dependent manner, whereas tumour-specific PD-L1-expression is not prognostic in CRC.
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| 2. |
- Berntsson, Jonna, et al.
(författare)
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Pre-diagnostic anthropometry, sex, and risk of colorectal cancer according to tumor immune cell composition
- 2019
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Ingår i: OncoImmunology. - 2162-4011. ; 8:12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Obesity is a well-established risk factor for colorectal cancer (CRC), but the association with the tumor microenvironment has been sparsely described. Herein, we examined the relationship between pre-diagnostic anthropometry and CRC risk according to tumor immune cell composition, with particular reference to potential sex differences. The density of different immune cell subsets was assessed by immunohistochemistry in tissue microarrays with tumors from 584 incident CRC cases in a prospective, population-based cohort (n = 28098). Multivariable Cox regression models, adjusted for age, smoking, alcohol intake, and educational level, were applied to calculate risk of immune marker-defined CRC in relation to quartiles of pre-diagnostic height, weight, body mass index (BMI), waist and hip circumferences, waist-hip ratio (WHR), and body fat percentage (BFP). Obesity was all over significantly associated with risk of CRC with low density of FoxP3+ T cells and low programmed cell-death protein 1 (PD-L1) expression on tumor cells, but with high density of CD8+ T cells and CD20+ B cells. In women, obesity was significantly associated with risk of PD-L1 high tumors (p= 0.009 for weight, p= 0.039 for BMI). Contrastingly, in men, obesity defined by all anthropometric factors was significantly associated with PD-L1 low tumors (p= 0.005 for weight, p = 0.002 for BMI, p<0.001 for waist, p= 0.011 for hip, p<0.001 for WHR, and p= 0.004 for BFP). In summary, obesity appears to influence the immune landscape of CRC, possibly in a sex-dependent manner. Thus, anthropometry and sex may be important factors to take into account when assessing the prognostic or predictive value of relevant complementary immune biomarkers.
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| 3. |
- Berntsson, Jonna, et al.
(författare)
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The clinical impact of tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes in colorectal cancer differs by anatomical subsite : A cohort study
- 2017
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Ingår i: International Journal of Cancer. - : WILEY. - 0020-7136 .- 1097-0215. ; 141:8, s. 1654-1666
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Accumulating evidence demonstrates an association between dense infiltration of lymphocytes and prognosis in colorectal cancer (CRC), but whether this prognostic impact differs by tumour location remains unknown. This study investigated the prognostic impact of cytotoxic and regulatory T cells in CRC, with particular referennfiltrating T cce to the anatomical subsite of the primary tumour. The density of CD3(+), CD8(+) and FoxP3(+) tumour-iells was calculated in tissue microarrays with tumours from 557 incident CRC cases from a prospective population-based cohort. Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses were applied to determine the impact of high and low lymphocyte density on 5-year overall survival, in subgroup analysis of right colon, left colon and rectum. High CD8(+) cell density was a favourable prognostic factor for patients with right-sided colon tumours (hazard ratio [HR]=0.53, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.29-0.95), independent of age, sex, TNM stage, differentiation grade and vascular invasion, with a significant prognostic interaction between CD8(+) cells and right-sidedness (p=0.031). High FoxP3(+) cell density was an independent favourable prognostic factor only in patients with rectal tumours (HR=0.54, 95% CI 0.30-0.99), and CD3(+) cell density was an independent favourable prognostic factor for tumours in the right colon and rectum, but there was no significant prognostic interaction between CD3(+) or FoxP3(+) cells and sidedness. These results demonstrate that the prognostic impact of tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes in CRC differs by primary tumour site, further indicating that tumour location may be an important factor to take into consideration in therapeutic decisions, including eligibility for immunotherapy.
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| 4. |
- Boman, Karolina, et al.
(författare)
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Membranous expression of podocalyxin-like protein is an independent factor of poor prognosis in urothelial bladder cancer
- 2013
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Ingår i: British Journal of Cancer. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0007-0920 .- 1532-1827. ; 108:11, s. 2321-2328
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Membranous expression of the anti-adhesive glycoprotein podocalyxin-like (PODXL) has previously been found to correlate with poor prognosis in several major cancer forms. Here we examined the prognostic impact of PODXL expression in urothelial bladder cancer. Methods: Immunohistochemical PODXL expression was examined in tissue microarrays with tumours from two independent cohorts of patients with urothelial bladder cancer: n = 100 (Cohort I) and n = 343 (Cohort II). The impact of PODXL expression on disease-specific survival (DSS; Cohort II), 5-year overall survival (OS; both cohorts) and 2-year progression-free survival (PFS; Cohort II) was assessed. Results: Membranous PODXL expression was significantly associated with more advanced tumour (T) stage and high-grade tumours in both cohorts, and a significantly reduced 5-year OS (unadjusted HR = 2.25 in Cohort I and 3.10 in Cohort II, adjusted HR = 2.05 in Cohort I and 2.18 in Cohort II) and DSS (unadjusted HR = 4.36, adjusted HR = 2.70). In patients with Ta and T1 tumours, membranous PODXL expression was an independent predictor of a reduced 2-year PFS (unadjusted HR = 6.19, adjusted HR = 4.60) and DSS (unadjusted HR = 8.34, adjusted HR = 7.16). Conclusion: Membranous PODXL expression is an independent risk factor for progressive disease and death in patients with urothelial bladder cancer.
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| 5. |
- Borg, David, et al.
(författare)
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Podocalyxin-like protein as a predictive biomarker for benefit of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in resectable gastric and esophageal adenocarcinoma
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Translational Medicine. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1479-5876. ; 16:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: We have previously shown that podocalyxin-like protein (PODXL) is a prognostic biomarker for poor survival in gastric and esophageal adenocarcinoma treated with surgery up-front. The aim of the present study was to assess PODXL expression in tumors from patients treated with neoadjuvant ± adjuvant (i.e. preoperative with or without postoperative) chemotherapy, with regard to histopathologic response, time to recurrence (TTR) and overall survival (OS). Methods: The neoadjuvant cohort encompasses 148 consecutive patients who received neoadjuvant ± adjuvant chemotherapy for resectable gastric or esophageal adenocarcinoma between 2008 and 2014. Immunohistochemical expression of PODXL was assessed in pre-neoadjuvant biopsies, resected primary tumors and lymph node metastases. Histopathologic response was evaluated using the Chirieac grading. TTR and OS were estimated using Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses. To investigate a potential predictive role for PODXL, the neoadjuvant cohort was pooled with the previously reported surgery up-front cohort. Results: The majority (> 95%) of the patients were treated with fluoropyrimidine- and oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy. Patients with high PODXL expression in their pre-neoadjuvant biopsies had a superior histopathologic response (notably 36% with no residual cancer cells) compared to those with negative or low PODXL expression, and were all recurrence-free at last follow-up. In the pooled cohort, no benefit of chemotherapy could be shown for PODXL negative cases, whereas PODXL positive (low or high) cases had a prolonged TTR and OS when treated with neoadjuvant ± adjuvant chemotherapy compared to surgery alone. The potential predictive role of PODXL was further strengthened for TTR in Cox regression analyses, especially for patients treated with neoadjuvant fluoropyrimidine and oxaliplatin for a minimum of 8 weeks, with a significant interaction term in both unadjusted (p = 0.006) and adjusted (p = 0.024) analyses. The interaction term was not statistically significant for overall survival. Conclusions: Patients with resectable gastric or esophageal adenocarcinoma with high PODXL expression in their diagnostic biopsies have an excellent prognosis when treated with neoadjuvant ± adjuvant fluoropyrimidine- and oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy. If the suggested predictive role of PODXL for benefit of chemotherapy can be confirmed, patients with PODXL negative tumors could be spared chemotherapy and treated with surgery alone.
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| 6. |
- Heby, Margareta, et al.
(författare)
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Additive clinical impact of epidermal growth factor receptor and podocalyxin-like protein expression in pancreatic and periampullary adenocarcinomas
- 2020
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 10:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The outcome of periampullary adenocarcinomas remains poor with few treatment options. Podocalyxin-like protein (PODXL) is an anti-adhesive protein, the high expression of which has been shown to confer a poor prognosis in numerous malignancies. A correlation and adverse prognostic synergy between PODXL and the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) has been observed in colorectal cancer. Here, we investigated whether this also applies to periampullary adenocarcinomas. We analyzed the immunohistochemical expression of PODXL and EGFR in tissue microarrays with tumors from two patient cohorts; (Cohort 1, n = 175) and (Cohort 2, n = 189). The effect of TGF-β-induced expression and siRNA-mediated knockdown of PODXL and EGFR, were investigated in pancreatic cancer cells (PANC-1) in vitro. We found a correlation between PODXL and EGFR in these cancers, and a synergistic adverse effect on survival. Furthermore, silencing PODXL in pancreatic cancer cells resulted in the down-regulation of EGFR, but not vice versa. Consequently, these findings suggest a functional link between PODXL and EGFR, and the potential combined utility as biomarkers possibly improving patient stratification. Further studies examining the mechanistic basis underlying these observations may open new avenues of targeted treatment options for subsets of patients affected by these particularly aggressive cancers.
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| 7. |
- Larsson, Anna H, et al.
(författare)
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Overexpression of podocalyxin-like protein is an independent factor of poor prognosis in colorectal cancer
- 2011
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Ingår i: British Journal of Cancer. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0007-0920 .- 1532-1827. ; 105:5, s. 666-672
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Podocalyxin-like 1 (PODXL) is a cell-adhesion glycoprotein and stem cell marker that has been associated with an aggressive tumour phenotype and poor prognosis in several forms of cancer. In this study, we investigated the prognostic impact of PODXL expression in colorectal cancer (CRC). METHODS: Using tissue microarrays and immunohistochemistry, PODXL expression was evaluated in 536 incident CRC cases from a prospective, population-based cohort study. Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards modelling were used to assess the impact of PODXL expression on cancer-specific survival (CSS) and overall survival (OS). RESULTS: High PODXL expression was significantly associated with unfavourable clinicopathological characteristics, a shorter CSS (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.98; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.38-2.84, P < 0.001) and 5-year OS (HR = 1.85; 95% CI 1.29-2.64, P = 0.001); the latter remaining significant in multivariate analysis (HR = 1.52; 95% CI 1.03-2.25, P = 0.036). In addition, in curatively resected stage III (T1-4, N1-2, M0) patients (n = 122) with tumours with high PODXL expression, a significant benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy was demonstrated (p(interaction) = 0.004 for CSS and 0.015 for 5-year OS in multivariate analysis). CONCLUSION: Podocalyxin-like 1 expression is an independent factor of poor prognosis in CRC. Our results also suggest that PODXL may be a useful marker to stratify patients for adjuvant chemotherapy.
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| 8. |
- Larsson, Anna H, et al.
(författare)
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Podocalyxin-like protein expression in primary colorectal cancer and synchronous lymph node metastases
- 2013
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Ingår i: Diagnostic Pathology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1746-1596. ; 8:1, s. 109-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aims: Previous studies have shown that membranous expression of podocalyxin-like protein (PODXL) is associated with poor prognosis in colorectal cancer (CRC). In this study, we compared PODXL expression in primary CRC and synchronous lymph node metastases. We further analyzed whether its expression changed in rectal tumours after neoadjuvant radiation therapy. Methods and results: The studied cohort consists of 73 consecutive patients from the South-Swedish Colorectal Cancer Biobank. Immunohistochemical PODXL expression was examined on full-face sections from all primary tumours and all 140 available lymph node metastases from 31 cases. Membranous PODXL expression was denoted in 18/73 (24,7%) primary tumours, with a high concordance between primary and metastatic lesions. While all negative primary tumours had negative metastases, some PODXL positive primaries had a varying proportion of positive and negative metastatic lymph nodes. PODXL expression was also found to be mainly unaltered in pre- and post-irradiation surgically resected tumour specimens in rectal cancer patients (n=16). Conclusions: The findings in this study suggest that analysis of PODXL expression in the primary tumour is sufficient for its use as a prognostic and treatment predictive biomarker in CRC, also in patients with metastatic disease.
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| 9. |
- Larsson, Anna H., et al.
(författare)
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Significant association and synergistic adverse prognostic effect of podocalyxin-like protein and epidermal growth factor receptor expression in colorectal cancer
- 2016
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Ingår i: Journal of Translational Medicine. - : BioMed Central. - 1479-5876. ; 14
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Podocalyxin-like 1 (PODXL) is an anti-adhesive transmembrane protein that has been demonstrated to be an independent factor of poor prognosis in colorectal cancer (CRC). The gene encoding PODXL is located to chromosome 7, which also harbours the gene for the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). The aim of this study was to examine the associations between PODXL and EGFR expression in CRC in vitro and in vivo. Methods: EGFR expression was analysed in tumours from three independent patient cohorts; cohort 1 (n = 533), cohort 2 (n = 259) and cohort 3 (n = 310), previously analysed for immunohistochemical PODXL expression and KRAS and BRAF mutations (cohort 1 and 3). Levels of EGFR and PODXL were determined by western blot in six different CRC cell lines. Results: High expression of PODXL was significantly associated with high EGFR expression (p < 0.001) in all three cohorts, and with BRAF mutation (p < 0.001) in cohort 1 and 3. High EGFR expression correlated with BRAF mutation (p < 0.001) in cohort 1. High EGFR expression was associated with adverse clinicopathological factors and independently predicted a reduced 5-year overall survival (OS) in cohort 1 (HR 1.77; 95 % CI 1.27-2.46), cohort 2 (HR 1.58; 95 % CI 1.05-2.38) and cohort 3 (HR 1.83; 95 % CI 1.19-2.81). The highest risk of death within 5 years was observed in patients with tumours displaying high expression of both EGFR and PODXL in cohort 1 and 3 (HR 1.97; 95 % CI 1.18-3.28 and HR 3.56; 95 % CI 1.75-7.22, respectively). Western blot analysis showed a uniform expression of PODXL and EGFR in all six examined CRC cell lines. Conclusions: The results from this study demonstrate that high expression of EGFR is an independent factor of poor prognosis in CRC. Moreover, strong links have been uncovered between expression of the recently proposed biomarker candidate PODXL with EGFR expression in CRC in vivo and in vitro, and with BRAF mutation in vivo. High expression of both PODXL and EGFR may also have a synergistic adverse effect on survival. These findings suggest a potential functional link in CRC between PODXL, EGFR and BRAF, all originating from chromosome 7, which may be highly relevant in the clinical setting and therefore merit future in-depth study.
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| 10. |
- Larsson, Anna H, et al.
(författare)
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Validation of podocalyxin-like protein as a biomarker of poor prognosis in colorectal cancer
- 2012
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Ingår i: BMC Cancer. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2407. ; 12, s. 282-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Podocalyxin-like 1 (PODXL) is a cell-adhesion glycoprotein and stem cell marker that has been associated with an aggressive tumour phenotype and adverse outcome in several cancer types. We recently demonstrated that overexpression of PODXL is an independent factor of poor prognosis in colorectal cancer (CRC). The aim of this study was to validate these results in two additional independent patient cohorts and to examine the correlation between PODXL mRNA and protein levels in a subset of tumours. Method: PODXL protein expression was analyzed by immunohistochemistry in tissue microarrays with tumour samples from a consecutive, retrospective cohort of 270 CRC patients (cohort 1) and a prospective cohort of 337 CRC patients (cohort 2). The expression of PODXL mRNA was measured by real-time quantitative PCR in a subgroup of 62 patients from cohort 2. Spearman's Rho and Chi-Square tests were used for analysis of correlations between PODXL expression and clinicopathological parameters. Kaplan Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards modelling were applied to assess the relationship between PODXL expression and time to recurrence (TTR), disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). Results: High PODXL protein expression was significantly associated with unfavourable clinicopathological characteristics in both cohorts. In cohort 1, high PODXL expression was associated with a significantly shorter 5-year OS in both univariable (HR = 2.28; 95% CI 1.43-3.63, p = 0.001) and multivariable analysis (HR = 2.07; 95% CI 1.25-3.43, p = 0.005). In cohort 2, high PODXL expression was associated with a shorter TTR (HR = 2.93; 95% CI 1.26-6.82, p = 0.013) and DFS (HR = 2.44; 95% CI 1.32-4.54, p = 0.005), remaining significant in multivariable analysis, HR = 2.50; 95% CI 1.05-5.96, p = 0.038 for TTR and HR = 2.11; 95% CI 1.13-3.94, p = 0.019 for DFS. No significant correlation could be found between mRNA levels and protein expression of PODXL and there was no association between mRNA levels and clinicopathological parameters or survival. Conclusions: Here, we have validated the previously demonstrated association between immunohistochemical expression of PODXL and poor prognosis in CRC in two additional independent patient cohorts. The results further underline the potential utility of PODXL as a biomarker for more precise prognostication and treatment stratification of CRC patients.
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