Decreased expression of Neurensin-2 correlates with poor prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma

Figure 1 Immunohistochemical staining of NRSN2 in HCC. A and B: Positive staining of NRSN2 at two different magnifications (× 100 and × 400), respectively, scored as NRSN2 (++); C: Immunostaining of HCC and adjacent surrounding non-tumorous tissue showing a sharp contrast between infiltrative tumor area of negative staining (“T”) and the adjacent non-tumorous tissue of positive staining (“N”) (× 200). The length of the bar in A, B and C is 500, 100 and 200 μm, respectively.

Figure 2 Western blotting analysis of NRSN2 expression in HCC. Protein extracted from paired tumor tissues (T) and surrounding non-tumorous liver tissues (N) in four patients with HCC.

Figure 3 Kaplan-Meier survival analysis of primary hepatocellular carcinoma patients (n = 110) after surgical resection with negative NRSN2 expression (n = 78) and positive NRSN2 expression (n = 32). The survival rate for patients in the NRSN2 negative group (“-”) was significantly lower than that for patients in the NRSN2 positive group (“+”) (log rank, P = 0.008).