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. 2018 Aug 31;9(68):32984-32996.
doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.26034.

Increased plasma levels of galectin-1 in pancreatic cancer: potential use as biomarker

Neus Martinez-Bosch #  1 , Luis E Barranco #  1   2 , Carlos A Orozco #  1 , Mireia Moreno  1 , Laura Visa  3 , Mar Iglesias  4 , Lucy Oldfield  5 , John P Neoptolemos  6 , William Greenhalf  5 , Julie Earl  7 , Alfredo Carrato  7 , Eithne Costello  5 , Pilar Navarro  1   8
Affiliations

Increased plasma levels of galectin-1 in pancreatic cancer: potential use as biomarker

Neus Martinez-Bosch et al. Oncotarget. .

Abstract

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is the most frequent type of pancreatic cancer and one of the deadliest diseases overall. New biomarkers are urgently needed to allow early diagnosis, one of the only factors that currently improves prognosis. Here we analyzed whether the detection of circulating galectin-1 (Gal-1), a soluble carbohydrate-binding protein overexpressed in PDA tissue samples, can be used as a biomarker for PDA. Gal-1 levels were determined by ELISA in plasma from healthy controls and patients diagnosed with PDA, using three independent cohorts. Patients with chronic pancreatitis (CP) were also included in the study to analyze the potential of Gal-1 to discriminate between cancer and inflammatory process. Plasma Gal-1 levels were significantly increased in patients with PDA as compared to controls in all three cohorts. Gal-1 sensitivity and specificity values were similar to that of the CA19-9 biomarker (the only FDA-approved blood test biomarker for PDA), and the combination of Gal-1 and CA19-9 significantly improved their individual discriminatory powers. Moreover, high levels of Gal-1 were associated with lower survival in patients with non-resected tumors. Collectively, our data indicate a strong potential of using circulating Gal-1 levels as a biomarker for detection and prognostics of patients with PDA.

Keywords: biomarker; chronic pancreatitis; galectin-1; pancreatic cancer.

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Conflict of interest statement

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST No conflicts of interest were declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Gal-1 immunohistological expression in normal and pathological human pancreatic tissue samples
(A) Immunostaining of Gal-1 in normal pancreas, CP, IPMN, low and high PanIN lesions and PDA. (B) Box-and-whisker plots showing H-scores corrected by the percentage of stroma in the tissue for normal pancreas, CP, PanINs, IPMN and PDA. Scale bars, 200 μm.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Plasma levels of Gal-1 from healthy controls, CP and PDA samples from the three different cohorts
Box-and-whisker plot representation of Gal-1 levels in Barcelona-HM (left), Liverpool-UL (center) and Madrid-HURC (right) cohorts. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001 (Mann–Whitney test).
Figure 3
Figure 3. ROC curves for determining specificity and sensitivity values for Gal-1 and CA19-9
(A) ROC curves for Gal1 in the three cohorts. (B) ROC curves for CA19-9 in the Barcelona-HM cohort.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Comparison of the plasma Gal-1 leves with respect to tumor stage, tumor grade and metastasis
(A) PDA patients segregated by TNM tumor stage and their respective Gal-1 plasma levels, as shown by box-and-whisker plots. (B) PDA patients segregated by tumor grade (low or high) and their respective Gal-1 plasma levels, as shown by box-and-whisker plots. (C) Gal-1 plasma levels in patients without (“no”) or with (“yes”) metastasis.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Gal-1 plasma levels in PDA patients displaying short-(<6 months) or long-term survival (≥6 months)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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