Increased Expression of Thymosin βIs Independently Correlated with Hypoxia Inducible Factor-1α (HIF-1α) and Worse Clinical Outcome in Human Colorectal Cancer.

BACKGROUND: Thymosin βis a multi-functional hormone-like polypeptide, being involved in cell migration, angiogenesis, and tumor metastasis. This study was undertaken to clarify the clinicopathologic implications of thymosin βexpression in human colorectal cancers (CRCs). METHODS: We investigated tissue sections from 143 patients with CRC by immunohistochemistry. In addition, we evaluated the expression patterns and the clinico-pathological significance of thymosin βexpression in association with hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) expression in the CRC series. RESULTS: High expression of thymosin βwas significantly correlated with lymphovascular invasion, invasion depth, regional lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, and TNM stage. Patients with high expression of thymosin βshowed poor recurrence-free survival (p = .001) and poor overall survival (p = .005) on multivariate analysis. We also found that thymosin βand HIF-1α were overexpressed and that thymosin βexpression increased in parallel with HIF-1α expression in CRC. CONCLUSIONS: A high expression level of thymosin βindicates poor clinical outcomes and may be a useful prognostic factor in CRC. Thymosin βis functionally related with HIF-1α and may be a potentially valuable biomarker and possible therapeutic target for CRC.