Resumen de Constitutive expression of c‑REL in uveal melanoma patients: correlation with clinicopathological parameters and patient outcome
M.K. Singh, L. Singh, N. Pushker, K. Chodsol, S. Bakhshi, R. Meel, S. Sen, S. Kashyap
PurposeUveal melanoma (UM) is the most common intraocular cancer with a high mortality rate that requires new research in the field of prevention and treatment. c-REL is a member of the nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) transcription factor family and an emerging regulator of tumorigenesis. Therefore, the objective of the study is to evaluate the constitutive expression of c-REL in uveal melanoma patients and its prognostic significance.MethodsDetection of c-REL expression was carried out by immunohistochemistry in all 75 patients, and qRT-PCR per-formed on 58 fresh cases of uveal melanoma along with IL-6 status. Immunoblot was performed to validate immunohisto-chemistry results. Expression of c-REL protein correlated with clinicopathological parameters and overall survival of patients.ResultsImmunohistochemistry results revealed nuclear expression of the c-REL protein (56%) in our cases. Out of 75 cases, 31 cases showed nuclear expression, and 11 cases had cytoplasmic expression. qRT-PCR showed upregulation of the RELgene in 56.89% cases at the transcriptional level. There was a statistically significant difference in the overall survival of patients with c-REL nuclear immunopositivity (p = 0.0048). On multivariate analysis, scleral invasion and c-REL nuclear expression found to be an independent prognostic factor (p < 0.05)ConclusionsTo the best of our knowledge, this was the first study reporting the expression of the c-REL protein in uveal melanoma. Strong nuclear immunoexpression of c-Rel suggests NFκB pathway activation which might be involved in the progression of the disease. Differential expression of c-REL protein may be used as an attractive target for the development
