Down regulation of Thrombospondin2 predicts poor prognosis in patients with gastric cancer

Background: Thrombospondins (THBSs) are a family of multidomain and secreted matricellular Ca2+-binding glycoproteins which has at least five members encoded by independent genes. As a THBSs family member, Thrombospondin2 (THBS2) has been reported to regulate angiogenesis. Nevertheless, the functions and clinical significance of THBS2 still remains unclear in gastric cancer. Methods: The mRNA and protein expression levels of THBS2 were assessed in 14 paired of gastric cancer specimens and corresponding normal mucosas using quantitative real-time PCR and western blot analysis. Immunohistochemistry of THBS2 and CD34 on population-based tissue microarrays consisting of 129 gastric cancer cases were used to evaluate the prognostic significance of THBS2 and microvessel density (MVD) of each sample. Survival analyses were performed by Kaplan-Meier method and Cox's proportional hazards model. Colony formation assay, endothelial cell tube formation assay, cell migration assay and apoptosis analysis in MKN-45 and SGC-7901 cell lines were carried out to evaluate the effects of THBS2 on gastric cancer in vitro. Results: 85.71% (12 of 14) gastric cancer tissues expressed remarkably lower THBS2 in both mRNA and protein levels than the corresponding normal controls. Consistently, tissue microarray (TMA) results showed THBS2 levels were also inhibited in gastric cancer tissues compared with the normal controls. Moreover, we observed that patients with higher levels of THBS2 were significantly correlated with more favourable prognosis while decreased THBS2 expression were associated with poorer histological grades of gastric cancer. Additionally, our in vitro experiments further demonstrated that overexpression of THBS2 could impede both the proliferation rate and the tube formation of Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) in MKN-45 and SGC-7901 cell lines. Conclusion: Our study suggests THBS2 is aberrantly expressed in gastric cancer and plays a critical role in cancer progression, which can be a potential prognosis predictor of gastric cancer.