Purpose: Autophagy, the process responsible for degrading cytoplasmic organelles to sustain cellular metabolism, has been associated with cancer initiation and progression. As TP53-induced glycolysis and apoptosis regulator (TIGAR ) is among the important genes that can regulate autophagy, we aimed to investigate the correlation between the expression levels of TIGAR and the autophagy-related protein microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3 (LC3B ), as well as their association with clinical outcomes, in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients.
Methods: We detected the expressions of TIGAR and LC3B in 182 NPC tissue samples via immunohistochemical staining.
Results: A significant correlation between TIGAR and LC3B expressions was identified (P =0.045). Moreover, survival analysis showed that TIGAR– or LC3B+ expression was associated with improved overall survival, local regional failure-free survival, distant failure-free survival, and failure-free survival rates, compared with TIGAR+ or LC3B– expression, respectively. Meanwhile, when combining TIGAR with LC3B expression in terms of prognostic value, patients with TIGAR+/LC3B– expression were significantly disadvantaged with regard to overall survival, local regional failure-free survival , distant failure-free survival, and failure-free survival compared with other groups based on the log-rank test and Cox regression analyses (all P <0.05).
Conclusion: TIGAR and LC3B may be novel biomarkers for predicting the prognosis of NPC patients and could be utilized as potential targets for future therapeutics aimed at treating NPC patients.
Keywords: nasopharyngeal carcinoma, TIGAR, LC3B, autophagy, prognosis