Aberrant Expression of RAD52, Its Prognostic Impact in Rectal Cancer and Association with Poor Survival of Patients

• Published in: International journal of molecular sciences 2020-03, Vol.21 (5), p.1768
• Main Authors: Ho, Vincent, Chung, Liping, Singh, Amandeep, Lea, Vivienne, Abubakar, Askar, Lim, Stephanie H, Chua, Wei, Ng, Weng, Lee, Mark, Roberts, Tara L, de Souza, Paul, Lee, Cheok Soon
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Age; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Annealing; Apoptosis; Biomarkers; Biomarkers - metabolism; Breast cancer; Cancer; Cancer therapies; Cell cycle; Chemotherapy; Cohort Studies; Colorectal cancer; Deoxyribonucleic acid; Disease-Free Survival; DNA; DNA Breaks, Double-Stranded; DNA damage; dna damage response; dna double-strand breaks (dsbs); DNA Repair; DNA-binding protein; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Gene expression; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; Genes; Genomes; Homologous recombination; Homology; Humans; Immunohistochemistry; Male; Medical prognosis; Metastasis; Middle Aged; Mutation; Patients; Prognosis; Protein expression; Proteins; rad52; Rad52 DNA Repair and Recombination Protein - metabolism; Rad52 protein; Radiation therapy; rectal cancer; Rectal Neoplasms - diagnosis; Rectal Neoplasms - metabolism; Rectal Neoplasms - mortality; Rectum; Survival; Survival analysis; Tissue Array Analysis; Treatment Outcome; Tumors
• ISSN: 1422-0067; 1661-6596; 1422-0067
• DOI: 10.3390/ijms21051768

The DNA damage response enables cells to survive and maintain genome integrity. RAD52 is a DNA-binding protein involved in the homologous recombination in DNA repair, and is important for the maintenance of tumour genome integrity. We investigated possible correlations between RAD52 expression and cancer survival and response to preoperative radiotherapy. RAD52 expression was examined in tumour samples from 179 patients who underwent surgery for rectal cancer, including a sub-cohort of 40 patients who were treated with neoadjuvant therapy. A high score for RAD52 expression in the tumour centre was significantly associated with worse disease-free survival (DFS; = 0.045). In contrast, reduced RAD52 expression in tumour centre samples from patients treated with neoadjuvant therapy ( = 40) significantly correlated with poor DFS ( = 0.025) and overall survival (OS; = 0.048). Our results suggested that RAD52 may have clinical value as a prognostic marker of tumour response to neoadjuvant radiation and both disease-free status and overall survival in patients with rectal cancer.