Figure 1.
Representative IHC images of PI3K-p85α, EGFR, p53, c-KIT and TIMP1.
IHC results reveal that these proteins are highly expressed in ESCC tumors, whereas a low/no expression in adjacent normal tissues. IHC, immunohistochemistry; ESCC, esophageal squamous cell carcinoma; PI3K, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinases; EGFR, epidermal growth factor receptor; TIMP1, TIMP metallopeptidase inhibitor 1. Original magnification: 200 × and 400 ×.
Figure 2.
Significant differences of protein expression between ESCC and adjacent normal tissues (Paired Samples t Test).
High expression of proteins in ESCC tumors (black bar graph), and low or no expression of proteins in adjacent normal tissues (white bar graph). Black horizontal lines are means, and error bars are SEs. *: P<0.05. **: P<0.01. ***: P<0.001. ESCC, esophageal squamous cell carcinoma; PI3K, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinases; EGFR, epidermal growth factor receptor; TIMP1, TIMP metallopeptidase inhibitor 1.
Table 1.
Relationship between high expression of proteins and clinicopathologic parameters.
Table 2.
Clinicopathologic characteristics of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.
Figure 3.
Overall survival analysis according to the expression of PI3K-p85α, EGFR and p53.
(A) Overall survival analysis in the first cohort of 213 ESCCs. (B) Overall survival analysis in the second cohort of 377 ESCCs. (C) Overall survival analysis in a total of 590 ESCCs. Blue graph: patients with “PI3K-p85α low” or “EGFR low” or “p53 low”. Green graph: patients with “PI3K-p85α high” or “EGFR high” or “p53 high”. PI3K, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinases; EGFR, epidermal growth factor receptor.
Figure 4.
Representative IHC images of PI3K-P85α, EGFR, and p53 in the serial tissue sections.
Expression of these proteins in 3 cases (EC-440, EC-452, EC-586). PI3K, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinases; EGFR, epidermal growth factor receptor. Original magnification: 400×.
Figure 5.
Overall survival analysis according to numbers of highly expressed proteins in ESCC tumors.
(A–C) ESCCs are divided into four groups in both the two cohorts or together: better prognosis (high expression of 0 marker), good prognosis (high expression of 1 marker), average prognosis (high expression of 2 markers) and poor prognosis (high expression of 3 markers). (D) ESCCs are divided into two groups: good prognosis (high expression of 0–1 marker) and poor prognosis (high expression of 2–3 markers).
Figure 6.
Overall survival analysis according to the combination of the protein panel and clinicopathologic parameters.
(A) A combination of the protein panel and lymph node metastases could stratify patients more accurately (right Kaplan-Meier curves) than just only lymph node metastases (left Kaplan-Meier curves). (B) A combination of the protein panel and pathologic stage could stratify patients more accurately (right Kaplan-Meier curves) than just only stage (left Kaplan-Meier curves).
Table 3.
Multivariate cox regression analysis of factors predicting survival time of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.