High MUC2 expression in ovarian cancer is inversely associated with the M1/M2 ratio of tumor-associated macrophages and patient survival time

• Published in: PloS one 2013-12, Vol.8 (12), p.e79769-e79769
• Main Authors: He, Yi-feng, Zhang, Mei-ying, Wu, Xin, Sun, Xiang-jun, Xu, Ting, He, Qi-zhi, Di, Wen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aberration; Adenocarcinoma, Mucinous - genetics; Adenocarcinoma, Mucinous - metabolism; Adenocarcinoma, Mucinous - mortality; Adenocarcinoma, Mucinous - pathology; Aged; Analysis; Cancer; Cancer metastasis; Cell survival; Confidence intervals; Cyclooxygenase 2 - genetics; Cyclooxygenase 2 - metabolism; Cyclooxygenase-2; Cystadenocarcinoma, Serous - genetics; Cystadenocarcinoma, Serous - metabolism; Cystadenocarcinoma, Serous - mortality; Cystadenocarcinoma, Serous - pathology; Development and progression; Dinoprostone - metabolism; Feedback, Physiological; Female; Fluorescence; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; Growth factors; Gynecology; Hospitals; Humans; Immunohistochemistry; Laboratories; Ligands; Macrophages; Macrophages - classification; Macrophages - metabolism; Macrophages - pathology; Medical prognosis; Medical research; Medicine; Metastases; Metastasis; Middle Aged; Mucin; Mucin-2 - genetics; Mucin-2 - metabolism; Mucins; Neoplasm Staging; Obstetrics; Oncology; Ovarian cancer; Ovarian carcinoma; Ovarian Neoplasms - genetics; Ovarian Neoplasms - metabolism; Ovarian Neoplasms - mortality; Ovarian Neoplasms - pathology; Pathology; Patient outcomes; Patients; Polarization; Positive feedback; Prognosis; Proportional Hazards Models; Prostaglandin E2; Regression analysis; Rodents; Signal Transduction; Statistical analysis; Survival; Survival Analysis; Synthesis
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0079769

Mucin 2 (MUC2) is a mucin molecule aberrantly expressed by ovarian cancer cells. Previous in vitro studies have indicated that MUC2 promotes cancer growth and metastasis through a tumor-associated macrophage (TAM)-dependent mechanism. However, this mechanism has never been linked to clinical oncology, and its prognostic significance needed to be clarified. Here, we collected 102 consecutive ovarian cancer specimens and used the multiple immuno-histo-chemical/-fluorescent technique to determine the correlations between the MUC2 expression status, the ratio of M1/M2 TAMs and the densities of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2)(+) TAMs and COX-2(+) cancer cells. The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and multivariate Cox regression analysis were used to evaluate the prognostic influences of these parameters. As a result, we found that the MUC2 overexpression (immunostaining ++/+++) was significantly correlated with a reduced ratio of M1/M2 TAMs (p