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Updated: Oct 8, 2026
Genome-Wide Analysis of DNA Methylation in Gastrointestinal Cancer
Published on: September 18, 2020
Reduced galectin-3 expression is an indicator of unfavorable prognosis in gastric cancer
Kohji Okada1, Tatsuo Shimura, Taketoshi Suehiro
1Department of General Surgical Science (Surgery 1), Gunma University, Graduate School of Medicine, Maebashi 371-8511, Japan. okako@med.gunma-u.ac.jp
Background:
Galectin-3 (gal-3) participates in a variety of biological events, including cell adhesion, proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship of gal-3 expression with clinicopathological findings and prognosis in patients with gastric cancer.
Patients And Methods:
Gal-3 and Ki-67 expressions were assessed by immunohistochemistry in 115 patients with gastric cancer. PCR-single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP)-sequence analysis and the levels of gal-3 mRNA were also examined.
Results:
The present study demonstrated that gal-3 expression was correlated with nodal status, lymphatic inivasion, pathological stage and histological parameters. On the other hand, gal-3 expression did not correlate with the expression of Ki-67. Reduced expression of gal-3 was significantly associated with a poor prognosis and multivariate analysis showed that gal-3 expression was an independent prognostic factor. On PCR-SSCP-sequence analysis, 2 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were detected in the gal-3 gene, but none showed mutations.
Conclusion:
Reduced gal-3 expression was associated with lymph node metastasis, advanced stage and tumor differentiation in gastric cancer. Gal-3 expression could be a useful prognostic factor in gastric cancer.
