S100A9 as a novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in human gastric cancer

Objective: The morbidity and mortality of gastric cancer (GC) is high, but there are lack of the biomarkers for early diagnosis and progression of GC. We aimed to identify a novel biomarker for the growth and progression of GC.Methods: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database including 352 eligible patients was used to screen candidate genes related to the prognosis of GC. A proteomics analysis of Chinese Human Proteome Sketches (CHPS) including 84 eligible sample tissues was conducted to further identify candidate biomarkers. A series of in vitro assays were performed to investigate the functions of candidate proteins in GC. Next, to verify whether the candidate oncogene was associated with gastric carcinogenesis, we screened its expression levels using samples from 200 patients with chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG), intestinal metaplasia (IM), dysplasia, or GC and healthy controls.Results: According to the analyses of the TCGA database and CHPS, we found that S100A9 may be associated with the prognosis of GC. The results of proliferation, wound-healing and invasion assays, immunohistochemistry (IHC) and western blot showed that high levels of S100A9 in tissues were significantly associated with GC aggressiveness and a poor prognosis (p < .05). Furthermore, we found that the expression of S100A9 increased gradually during the process of gastric carcinogenesis (p < .05). The diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of S100A9 as a biomarker for early GC were 61.4% and 81.3%, respectively.Conclusions: This study reveals that S100A9 may be a novel biomarker for the early diagnosis and prognosis of GC patients.