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. 2025 Jul 23:16:1542159.
doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1542159. eCollection 2025.

Phosphoglycerate kinase 1 as a potential prognostic biomarker in papillary thyroid carcinoma

Xiao-Qing Shi  1 , Xiao-Tong Liu  2 , Xiao-Hui Liu  3   4 , Hui-Wen Geng  3 , Zhuo Zhang  5 , Wei-Yi Wang  6 , Xing Chen  7 , Xian Zhao  7 , Bo-Lin Jue  8 , Bo Qin  7 , Pei-Pei Liu  3   4
Affiliations

Phosphoglycerate kinase 1 as a potential prognostic biomarker in papillary thyroid carcinoma

Xiao-Qing Shi et al. Front Pharmacol. .

Abstract

Backgroud: Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) represents a malignant epithelial tumor characterized with a preference for younger individuals. Despite its generally favorable prognosis, PTC still poses considerable challenges, particularly in regards to the propensity for distant metastasis. As a key enzyme in the glycolytic pathway, phosphoglycerate kinase 1 (PGK1) has been linked to the progression of various cancer types. However, its role in PTC remains to be elucidated. This study aimed to investigate the association between PGK1 expression in thyroid cancer tissues and clinicopathological features, postoperative recurrence, and prognosis to provide clinical assessment and intervention reference.

Methods: We investigated the correlation between PGK1 expression and the clinicopathological characteristics, recurrence, and prognosis in 97 PTC patients who underwent surgical treatments between 1 January 2020, and 31 December 2020 in Zhengzhou University First Affiliated Hospital. Besides, we also analysed the correlation of PGK1 expression with the 10-year survival rate of patients with thyroid carcinoma (THCA) in UALCAN database.

Results: PGK1 expression was higher in cancerous tissues than that in adjacent non-cancerous tissues. Further analysis of PGK1 expression across clinicopathological characteristics revealed that patients with poorly differentiated tumors, TNM stages III-IV, lymph node metastasis, and tumor diameter ≥1.0 cm exhibited higher PGK1 expression levels in cancerous tissues. A subsequent 3-year postoperative follow-up was conducted to evaluate the correlation between PGK1 expression and recurrence. During this period, 31.96% of patients experienced recurrence, with higher PGK1 expression correlating with increased recurrence rates. Moreover, patients with higher PGK1 expression in cancerous tissue exhibited a significantly lower survival rate of 79.20% compared to the PGK1-low/medium group. Lastly, age, lymph node metastasis, differentiation degree, TNM stage, and tumor diameter were identified as risk factors for poor prognosis in patients with PTC analyzed by Cox regression.

Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that PGK1 expression may serve as a potential prognostic biomarker of PTC.

Keywords: clinicopathological characteristics; papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC); phosphoglycerate kinase 1 (PGK1); prognosis; recurrence.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Study population flow diagram.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
PGK1 is expressed strongly in cancerous tissue, but weakly in adjacent tissues. (A) lmmunohistochemical images of tissue microarray (TMA) analysis for PGK1 from a paired cancerous (a) and adjacent non-cancerous (b) case (magnifcation, ×50). Scale bar: 100 μm. Zoom image for PGK1 of a paired cancerous (c) and adjacent (d) case (magnifcation, ×400). Scale bar: 50 μm. (B) Positive ratio of PGK1 staining in TMA, 79.3% (46 of 58 cases) in cancerous samples and 18.9% (11 of 58 cases) in adjacent samples. (C) Quantitative RT-PCR analysis of the expression level of PGK1 in two groups. (D) Immunoblot of the protein level of PGK1 in two groups. (E) Immunoblot analysis of the protein level of PGK1 in two groups. Data are expressed as mean ± SEM. **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Relationship between PGK1 expression and prognosis in patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma. (A) Kaplan-Meier analysis of overall survival indicated the relationship between PGK1 expression and prognosis in patients with thyroid carcinoma in UALCAN database. (B) Kaplan-Meier analysis of overall survival indicated the relationship between PGK1 expression and prognosis in patients with PTC administrated in our datasets.
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