The clinicopathological and prognostic significances of IGF-1R and Livin expression in patients with colorectal cancer.

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer worldwide. However, limited effective biomarkers are associated with the tumorigenesis and prognosis of CRC.

Methods: The present study identified potential signatures from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and further validated the identified biomarkers in CRC tissues by immunohistochemistry (IHC).

Results: The expression of insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-1R) and Livin gene was significantly upregulated in CRC samples compared to the adjacent normal samples in the TCGA dataset. IHC indicated that IGF-1R and Livin protein levels are increased in CRC and adenoma tissues compared to normal tissues. Notably, the IGF-1R protein levels differed significantly between adenoma and CRC. The elevated IGF-1R and Livin expression was associated with CRC clinicopathological features, including age, gender, histological subtype, individual cancer stages, nodal metastasis, and TP53-mutant in TCGA. Additionally, the IGF-1R promoter methylation level was closely related to CRC. Consistent with the TCGA study, IHC indicated that overexpressed IGF-1R and Livin proteins were independent risk factors for stage and metastasis. A marked correlation was established between IGF-1R and Livin expression in CRC, while the survival map showed no significant correlation with CRC. Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed that CRC patients with high IGF-1R or Livin expression had a prolonged overall disease-free survival than those with low expression in TCGA.

Conclusions: IGF-1R and Livin are associated with CRC tumorigenesis and might be valuable for novel biomarker identification and targeted therapeutic strategy development.