Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 30, 2025

Detection of Alternative Splicing During Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition
Published on: October 9, 2014
Epithelial Splicing Regulatory Protein (ESPR1) Expression in an Unfavorable Prognostic Factor in Prostate Cancer
Hyung Ho Lee1, Andy Jinseok Lee2, Weon Seo Park3
1Department of Urology, Center for Prostate Cancer, National Cancer Center, Goyangsi, South Korea.
Background:
To evaluate the role of epithelial splicing regulatory protein 1 (ESRP1) expression in survival prognoses and disease progression for prostate cancer (PC) using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset and to validate it using patients' prostatectomy specimens.
Methods:
A preliminary investigation into the clinical significance of ESRP1 in PC was conducted using TCGA PC PRAD dataset and then using immunohistochemistry in 514 PC patients' tissue microarrays of radical prostatectomy specimens. The interpretation of immunohistochemistry was done using its intensity (high vs. low) or the semi-quantitative expression value (H-score, 0-300). The prognostic significance of ESRP1 expression was analyzed for biochemical recurrence (BCR), recurrence-free survival (RFS), overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) using the Cox proportional-hazards model (p < 0.05).
Results:
In the publicly available prostate adenocarcinoma dataset, ESRP1 expression was significantly higher in the tumor samples compared to the normal samples (p < 0.001). Survival analysis showed that the tumor samples in the ESRP1-high group had significantly worse BCR-free survival and RFS compared to the ESRP1-low group (p < 0.05), whereas OS was not (p=0.08). These results were largely consistent with the 514 patients' clinical data during a median 91.2 months of follow-up. After adjusting for significant prognostic clinicopathological factors, the multivariable models showed that the ESRP1 was a significantly risk factor for CSS (Hazard ratio 3.37, p = 0.034) and for BCR (HR 1.34, p=0.049) without any significance for OS (p=0.464).
Conclusions:
The higher ESRP1 expression appeared increased risk of disease progression and cancer-specific death in PC.
Related Concept Videos
RNA Splicing
Alternative RNA Splicing
There are five types of alternative RNA splicing that vary in the ways the pre-mRNA segments are removed or retained in the mature mRNA. The first...
What is Gene Expression?
Chromatin Structure Regulates pre-mRNA Processing
The chromatin structure, especially...
Abnormal Proliferation

