Wei L, Wang L, Liu YG, Gao LF. Expression significance of biomarker MORC4 in colorectal cancer patients and its relationship with pathological features and prognosis. World J Gastrointest Oncol 2025; 17(3): 102434 [DOI: 10.4251/wjgo.v17.i3.102434]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Li-Fei Gao, PhD, Associate Chief Physician, Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Cangzhou Central Hospital, No. 16 Xinhua West Road, Yunhe District, Cangzhou 061000, Hebei Province, China. gaolumu3859@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Basic Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Mar 15, 2025; 17(3): 102434 Published online Mar 15, 2025. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v17.i3.102434
Expression significance of biomarker MORC4 in colorectal cancer patients and its relationship with pathological features and prognosis
Li Wei, Liang Wang, Ya-Gang Liu, Li-Fei Gao
Li Wei, Liang Wang, Ya-Gang Liu, Department of General Surgery, Cangzhou Central Hospital, Cangzhou 061000, Hebei Province, China
Li-Fei Gao, Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Cangzhou Central Hospital, Cangzhou 061000, Hebei Province, China
Author contributions: Wang L designed the research study; Wei L performed the research; Liu YG and Gao LF conducted experiments, analyzed the data; and all authors contributed to editorial changes in the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Cangzhou Central Hospital, No. 29795793.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Li-Fei Gao, PhD, Associate Chief Physician, Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Cangzhou Central Hospital, No. 16 Xinhua West Road, Yunhe District, Cangzhou 061000, Hebei Province, China. gaolumu3859@163.com
Received: November 7, 2024 Revised: December 8, 2024 Accepted: January 10, 2025 Published online: March 15, 2025 Processing time: 99 Days and 3.5 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common malignant gastrointestinal tumors worldwide, with high incidence and mortality rates.
AIM
To investigate the expression significance of the chromatin-remodeling protein MORC family CW-type zinc finger 4 (MORC4) as a biomarker in CRC patients, and to explore its relationship with pathological features and prognosis.
METHODS
A total of 143 CRC specimens and 57 adjacent tissue specimens, surgically removed from our hospital between January 2020 and January 2021, were collected. MORC4 protein expression was assessed using immunohistochemistry after paraffin embedding. The relationship between MORC4 protein expression and clinicopathological characteristics of patients was analyzed. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were plotted to analyze the relationship between MORC4 protein expression and prognosis in CRC patients.
RESULTS
Compared with adjacent tissues, the expression rate of MORC4 protein in CRC tissues was significantly higher (P < 0.05). No significant difference was observed in the high expression rate of MORC4 protein in CRC tissues among patients of different gender, age, tumor location, tumor diameter, and primary tumor status (P > 0.05). However, significant differences were found in the high expression rate of MORC4 protein in patients with different degrees of differentiation, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, tumor-lymph node-metastasis stage, and serum carcinoembryonic antigen levels (P < 0.05). Compared with patients with low MORC4 expression, patients with high MORC4 expression had a worse prognosis (P < 0.05).
CONCLUSION
The upregulation of MORC4 expression in CRC patients is closely related to disease severity and prognosis, suggesting its potential as an evaluation biomarker, which warrants further investigation.
Core Tip: To investigate the expression significance of the chromatin-remodeling protein MORC family CW-type zinc finger 4 as a biomarker in colorectal cancer patients, and to explore its relationship with pathological features and prognosis. The upregulation of MORC family CW-type zinc finger 4 expression in colorectal cancer patients is closely related to disease severity and prognosis, suggesting its potential as an evaluation biomarker, which warrants further investigation.
