SPARCL1, Shp2, MSH2, E-cadherin, p53, ADCY-2 and MAPK are prognosis-related in colorectal cancer

Table 1 Clinicopathologic data of patients

Terms	n (%)
Sex
Male	85 (54.5)
Female	71 (45.5)
Location
Right hemicolon	45 (30.1)
Transverse colon	3 (1.9)
Left hemicolon	8 (5.8)
Sigmoid colon	32 (20.5)
Rectum	67 (41.7)
Differentiation
Well	95 (60.9)
Moderately	40 (25.6)
Poorly	17 (10.9)
Unknown	4 (2.6)
Bowel wall invasion (pT)
T1	7 (4.5)
T2	30 (19.2)
T3	116 (74.4)
T4	3 (1.9)
Lymph node metastasis (pN)
N0	82 (52.6)
N1	43 (27.5)
N2	31 (19.9)
Distant metastasis (pM)
M0	144 (92.3)
M1	12 (7.7)
TNM staging
I	29 (18.6)
II	52 (33.3)
III	63 (40.4)
IV	12 (7.7)
Post-surgery event
Recurrence or metastasis	51 (32.7)
Survival status
Dead	51 (32.7)1
Alive	105 (67.3)

¹Among patients who have died, 40 patients died from recurrence or metastasis, while 11 patients died from causes such as heart or lung failure, or reasons unknown. TNM: Tumor-nodes-metastasis.

Table 2 Expression of candidate markers in 156 colorectal cancer patients

Markers	Numbers of patients with different expression1
	Negative	Low	Medium	High
P53	42	36	32	40
APC	80	37	21	10
MAPK	114	27	8	0
E-cadherin	44	47	36	22
Mmp9	109	40	6	1
Hsp27	96	33	18	6
MSH2	17	52	47	39
P21ras	102	43	8	2
ADCY-2	45	67	36	3
Shp2	108	34	13	0
ETB	59	60	30	5
Neuroligin	53	52	43	4
Rho	28	68	45	9
SPARCL1	23	52	61	20

The immunohistochemical (IHC) results were assessed using a semi-quantitative system, as previously described[8]. According to the percentages of positive cells and staining intensity, the expression levels of the proteins were divided into four groups as negative, low, medium and high expression.

¹Data were missing because some specimens were lost during sectioning and staining of tissue arrays.

Table 3 Relationship between marker expression and clinical features (P values)

Markers	P values
	Differentiation	pT	pN	pM	TNM	Post-surgery
P53	0.671	0.654	0.003b	0.119	0.024a	0.207
MAPK	0.186	0.597	0.230	0.188	0.182	0.001b
E-cadherin	0.028a	0.342	0.080	0.041a	0.223	0.004b
MSH2	0.964	0.006b	0.012a	0.061	0.001b	0.001b
ADCY-2	0.458	0.430	0.779	0.470	0.878	0.082
Shp2	0.020a	0.004b	0.035a	0.849	0.006b	0.006b
SPARCL1	0.002b	0.171	0.037a	0.021a	0.044a	0.014a

The relationship between the expression of candidate markers and some pathologic features was evaluated by Kruskal-Wallis test (SPSS Version 13.0 software) in immunohistochemistry analyses. All P values are two-sided (^aP < 0.05,

^bP < 0.01). The pathologic features in the table were differentiation, bowel wall invasion (pT), lymph node metastasis (pN), distant metastasis (pM), TNM stage (TNM), post-surgery recurrence or metastasis (Post-surgery).