Expression and prognostic role of c-Myb as a novel cell cycle protein in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

The c-Myb transcription factor controls differentiation and proliferation in hematopoietic and other cell types, and has latent in regulation during the cell cycle. Recent studies suggested that deregulation of c-Myb expression plays a key role in oncogenesis. To investigate the potential roles of c-Myb in esophageal carcinoma, expression of c-Myb was examined in human esophageal carcinoma samples. Immunohistochemistry and Western blot analysis were performed for c-Myb in 87 esophageal carcinoma samples. The data were correlated with clinicopathological features. The univariate and multivariate survival analyses were also performed to determine their prognostic significance. c-Myb was overexpressed in esophageal carcinoma as compared with the adjacent normal tissue. High expression of c-Myb was associated with histological grade and was positively correlated with proliferation marker Ki-67 (P = 0.001). Univariate analysis showed that c-Myb expression was associated with poor prognosis (P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis indicated that c-Myb was an independent prognostic marker for esophageal carcinoma (P < 0.001). While in vitro, following release from serum starvation of TE-1 esophageal carcinoma cell, the expression of c-Myb was upregulated. Our results suggested that c-Myb overexpression is involved in the pathogenesis of esophageal carcinoma; it may be a favorable independent poor prognostic parameter for esophageal carcinoma.