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Introduction: Gastric cancer is one of the common malignant tumors with a high incidence and mortality in China. Prognostic biomarkers and potential predictors of the treatment efficacy of gastric cancer urgently need to be identified. Integrin‐β (ITGB) is a superfamily of integrins and is involved in cell adhesion, tissue repair, immune response, and tumor metastasis. Methods: We analyzed ITGB1 expression in our hospital samples of the gastric cancer cohort. And the public data of The Cancer Genome Atlas stomach adenocarcinoma (TCGA‐STAD), The Asian Cancer Research Group (ACRG)/GSE62254, and GSE15459 data sets were analyzed by using the bioinformatic methods. The relationships between ITGB1 expression and clinicopathological features, patient prognosis, activation of the Wnt/β‐catenin signaling pathway, and tumor immunosuppressive factors were also explored. Results: The positive rate of ITGB1 expression in the Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center gastric cancer tumor tissues was 61.4% (258/420) and correlated with deep invasion (p = 0.017), an advanced clinical stage (p = 0.011), and a poor prognosis (p < 0.05). The TCGA‐STAD/ACRG/GSE15459 cohorts also showed similar results. ITGB1 is one of the upstream molecules of the Wnt/β‐catenin signaling pathway and is correlated with tumor immune suppression. In gastric cancer, we found a correlation between ITGB1 expression and Wnt/β‐catenin signaling pathway activity. In the TCGA‐STAD/ACRG/GSE15459 cohorts, ITGB1 expression was positively associated with immunosuppressive factors and negatively associated with immunoactive factors. Patients with low ITGB1 expression exhibited a significantly high immunotherapy response ratio according to an analysis of tumor immune dysfunction and exclusion (TIDE), which may indicate that ITGB1 is a potential predictor of immunotherapy efficacy. Conclusions: ITGB1 affects the prognosis in gastric cancer patients and plays a core role in immune suppression in gastric cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collagen triple helix repeat containing (CTHRC1), which was identified as a cancer‐related factor, is a promigratory protein involved in multiple processes, including vascular remodeling, antifibrosis, metabolism, bone formation, and cancer. In this study, we aimed to investigate the clinical significance and possible role of CTHRC1 in the process of epithelial‐mesenchymal transition (EMT) in colorectal cancer (CRC). Here, we revealed that CTHRC1 mRNA and protein levels are both upregulated in CRC tissues compared with those of paired noncancerous tissues. Moreover, the overexpression of CTHRC1 correlated with poor prognosis in patients with CRC (especially colon cancer). Furthermore, we showed that CTHRC1 induced EMT and promoted cell motility in CRC cells. Importantly, we demonstrated that CTHRC1 promoted EMT by activating transforming growth factor‐β (TGF‐β) signaling, revealing a possible effective therapeutic treatment for patients with CRC. CTHRC1, epithelial‐mesenchymal transition, TGF‐β, colorectal cancer, prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common malignancies. Immunotherapy is a promising targeted treatment. The immune regulatory programmed death‐1 (PD‐1)/programmed death‐ligand 1 (PD‐L1) axis has been used as a checkpoint target for immunotherapy. Currently, considerable discrepancies exist concerning the expression status of PD‐L1 and its prognostic value in GC. We aimed to evaluate the expression rates of PD‐L1 in GC, and further assess its relationship with mismatch repair (MMR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) status. We retrospectively collected 550 consecutive cases of GC in Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center from 2010 to 2012. PD‐L1, MMR protein, and HER2 status were detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Fluorescence in situ hybridization was further used in HER2 IHC 2+ cases. Cases with at least 1% membranous and/or cytoplasmic PD‐L1 staining in either tumor cells (TCs) or tumor‐infiltrating immune cells (TIICs) were considered as PD‐L1 positive. The correlation between clinicopathological parameters, HER2, MMR, and PD‐L1 expression status was determined using chi‐squared tests. About 37.3% cases (205/550) showed PD‐L1 expression in TCs and/or TIICs. 17.3% cases (95/550) showed PD‐L1 expression in TCs, 34.5% (190/550) cases showed PD‐L1 expression in TIICs. There were 45 deficient MMR (dMMR) cases (8.2%), which showed higher rates of PD‐L1 expression compared with MMR‐proficient carcinomas (60.0% vs. 35.2%, P = 0.001). HER2 was positive in 66 (12.0%) cases. The expression of PD‐L1 occurred more frequently in HER2‐negative group than HER2‐positive cohorts (39.0% vs. 24.2%, P = 0.020). The survival analysis revealed that PD‐L1 was not associated with prognosis. This study evaluated the association between the PD‐L1 expression and a specific subgroup (dMMR and HER2‐negative) in a large Asian cohort of GC. GC patients with dMMR and HER2‐negative status exhibited higher PD‐L1 expression rates. Our finding indicated that MMR and HER‐2 status might be potential biomarkers for anti‐PD‐L1 therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]