Decreased expression of Zwint-1 is associated with poor prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma

Background and aim: ZW10 interacting kinetochore protein 1 (Zwint-1), one of the major kinetochore proteins, is essential for kinetochore function, such as spindle assembly checkpoint function and kinetochore-microtubule attachment. Recently, it has been found over-expressed in some human cancers, including ovarian cancer, bladder cancer, and pulmonary adenocarcinoma. However, few studies of the expression of Zwint-1 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have been reported. This study is aimed to investigate the expression of Zwint-1 and its relationship with clinical pathological characters in HCC. Methods: The expression of Zwint-1 protein was analyzed by immunohistochemistry staining on tissue microarrays containing 171 HCC tissues and 187 control non-tumorous liver tissues. The relationships between the Zwint-1 expression and the clinicopathological parameters, and survival analysis were investigated using SPSS software 13.0. Results: Zwint-1 was found uniformly expressed in adjacent non-tumorous liver tissues (184/187, 98.40%), while was significantly decreased in HCC tissues, or even absent (150 of 171, 61.82%, P<0.001). The expression of Zwint-1 was negatively associated with age, tumor size, and Edmondson Grade. Besides, HCC patients with low Zwint-1 expression were also correlated with poor overall survival of the patients. Conclusions: Decreased expression of Zwint-1 was associated with poor prognosis in HCC.