Expression of BMP-4 in papillary thyroid carcinoma and its correlation with tumor invasion and progression

Bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP-4) is a member of the BMP protein family. BMP-4 was reported to induce epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and promote tumor cell immigration and invasion. This study aimed to investigate the expression of BMP-4 in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) and its correlation with the patients' clinicophathological features and with tumor invasion and metastasis. Surgically resected PTC specimens from 82 patients admitted to the Department of Thyroid Surgery of Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital between Feb 1st and May 31st, 2016 were collected. The expression level of BMP-4 in PTC tissues was examined by immunohistochemical staining. The full clinical records of all patients were collected to analyze the relevance between BMP-4 expression and the clinical pathological features of PTC. Our result showed that BMP-4-positive cell rate and staining intensity were positively correlated with the patient's age (P=0.031, 0.037), tumor size (P=0.033, 0.019), capsular invasion (P=0.001, 0.002) and TNM stage (P=0.001, 0.004), while not correlated with gender, multicentricity of tumor or lymphatic metastasis. In conclusion, this study identified BMP-4 as a potential molecular marker for predicting the invasion and progression of PTC.