High expression of WISP-1 correlates with poor prognosis in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

WNT1 inducible signaling pathway protein 1 (WISP-1) is a member of the CCN family of growth factors and reported to possess an important role in tumorigenesis by triggering downstream events via integrin signaling. However, the exact role of WISP-1 in cancer remains unclear. In this study, we examined the expression pattern of WISP-1 at both mRNA and protein levels and evaluated the prognostic value of WISP-1 in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA). Expression of WISP-1 at mRNA level was upregulated in 17/24 tumor tissues compared to the matched adjacent non-tumor tissues and the result was confirmed by western blotting at protein level. Immunohistochemical staining of 194 pairs of PDA specimens suggested that high expression of WISP-1 is strongly correlated with clinical stage (P=0.003), T classification (P=0.008) and liver metastasis (P=0.012). Consistently, Kaplan-Meier survival curves indicated that patients with high expression of WISP-1 had a shorter survival time independent of clinical stage and lymphatic metastasis status. Moreover, univariate and multivariate analysis confirmed WISP-1 expression, age, classification and liver metastasis as independent prognostic factors for overall survival of PDA patients. Taken together, these results suggest that WISP-1 may serve as a potential prognostic biomarker for PDA.