Elevated nuclear YBX1 expression and the clinicopathological characteristics of patients with solid tumors: a meta-analysis

Chunze Zhang,1,2,* Tingting Yin,3,* Ran Tao,4,* Bo Xiao,5,* Jing Chen,4 Zixuan Li,5 Xueyuan Miao,3 Qing Peng,3 Liu Sun,3 Weihua Zhang,1 Junxu Ren,4 Zhao Zhang,1 Ying Zhang,1 Xichuan Li,6 Wei Zhang51Department of Colorectal Surgery, Tianjin Union Medical Center, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China; 2State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Nankai University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China; 3Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Histology and Embryology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Hebei North University, Zhangjiakou, Hebei, People’s Republic of China; 5School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China; 6Tianjin Key Laboratory of Animal and Plant Resistance, College of Life Sciences, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Purpose: Y-box binding protein 1 (YBX1) is a multifunctional protein linked to tumor progression and its elevated expression is an indicator of poor prognosis in various cancers. This meta-analysis aimed to investigate the prognostic value and clinical significance of YBX1 in malignant cancer.Methods: Relevant articles published through September 12, 2018 were identified from a comprehensive electronic and manual search in PubMed, Web of Science and Embase databases. The combined odds ratios (ORs) and hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were used to estimate the relationship among clinicopathological characteristics, overall survival and disease-free-survival of patients with solid tumor and YBX1 expression.Results: The study included 27 studies and 5,996 patients. Our analysis revealed significant association between increased YBX1 expression and tumor differentiation status, tumor size and lymph node metastasis; moreover, the pooled HR values demonstrated that high nuclear YBX1 expression was significantly associated with worse overall survival (HR=2.14; 95% CI: 1.72–2.67, P