2011 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

A research for new cancer vaccine with heat shock protein for esophageal cancer

Research Project

Project/Area Number	21791268
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Digestive surgery
Research Institution	Chiba University
Principal Investigator	AKUTSU Yasunori 千葉大学, 大学院・医学研究院, 講師 (00375677)
Project Period (FY)	2009 – 2011
Keywords	食道癌 / ヒートショックプロテイン / gp96
Research Abstract	We developed a procedure for extraction of tumor-derived HSP-peptide complex from from tumor using mouse squamous cell carcinoma SCCVII. Purification was carried out according to Pramod K. Srivastav's method (METHODS : A Companion to Methods in Enzymology 12, 165.171 (1997)). Then using clinical specimens, we evaluated the expression of gp96 and prognosis of esophageal cancer patients that underwent surgery and analyzed a correlation between gp96 expression and surgical outcome. In surgical specimens, 73% of all cases expressed gp96. A positive rate of lymph node metastases was higher in cases with negative gp96 expression. By univariate analysis, gp96 positivity indicated good survival compared to negative cases (p=0.049). By multivariate analysis, negativity for gp96 was an independent prognostic factor(Hazard ratio : 2.6, p=0.04). The number of metastatic lymph nodes was much higher in gp96 negative cases. These results indicated that gp96 can be a useful biomarker for esophageal cancer. These result has been published in a scientific journal.