Expression and clinical significance of CD74 and MMP-9 in colon adenocarcinomas

Purpose: To detect the expressions of CD74 and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) in colon adenocarcinomas, and to explore the relationship between the expressions and clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis. Methods: 98 cases of colon adenocarcinoma tissues from patients who underwent colon cancer resection in the Sixth Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University from January 2013 to March 2015 comprised the experimental group, while 71 cases of colon mucosa tissues from patients who underwent colon polypectomy during the same period comprised the control group. qRT-PCR was used to detect the expressions of CD44 and MMP-9 mRNAs in the two groups, in order to analyze their correlation in colon adenocarcinomas, and to also analyze their relationship with clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis. Results: The expressions of CD74 and MMP-9 mRNAs in colon adenocarcinoma tissues were significantly higher than those in normal colon mucosa tissues (p<0.05). The expressions of CD74 and MMP-9 mRNAs had no significant relationship with the patient's gender, age, differentiation grade and tumor type in colon adenocarcinoma tissues (p>0.05), but had significant correlation with lymph node metastasis and pathological stage (p<0.05). According to the average expressions of CD74 and MMP-9 mRNAs, the patients were divided into low and high expression groups. The 3-year survival rate of patients in the low expression group was significantly higher than that in the high expression group (p<0.05). Moreover, the expressions of CD74 and MMP-9 were positively correlated (r = 0.853, p<0.001). Conclusion: CD74 and MMP-9 are highly expressed in colon adenocarcinomas, and their expressions are closely related to the pathological stage, lymph node metastasis and prognosis of colon adenocarcinoma patients. Therefore, they can be used as important biological markers for diagnosis and prognosis prediction of colon adenocarcinoma.