Open AccessComputer‐aided assessment of the chemokine receptors CXCR3, CXCR4 and CXCR7 expression in gallbladder carcinoma
Author(s) -
Yu Xiao,
Lu Wei,
Ng Chan Way,
Xu Shuoyu,
Wu Yao,
Chen Shili,
Gao Yuren,
Zhang Yijian,
Zhang Qingqing,
Xu Yuzhen,
Liu Yingbin,
Li Sheng
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of cellular and molecular medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.44
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1582-4934
pISSN - 1582-1838
DOI - 10.1111/jcmm.15219
Subject(s) - cxcr4 , chemokine receptor , cxcr3 , cxc chemokine receptors , pathology , chemokine , pathological , metastasis , cancer research , medicine , receptor , biology , oncology , cancer
Gallbladder carcinoma (GBC) is a vicious and invasive disease. The major challenge in the clinical treatment of GBC is the lack of a suitable prognosis method. Chemokine receptors such as CXCR3, CXCR4 and CXCR7 play vital roles in the process of tumour progression and metastasis. Their expression levels and distribution are proven to be indicative of the progression of GBC, but are hard to be decoded by conventional pathological methods, and therefore, not commonly used in the prognosis of GBC. In this study, we developed a computer‐aided image analysis method, which we used to quantitatively measure the expression levels of CXCR3, CXCR4 and CXCR7 in the nuclei and cytoplasm of glandular and interstitial cells from a cohort of 55 GBC patients. We found that CXCR3, CXCR4 and CXCR7 expressions are associated with the clinicopathological variables of GBC. Cytoplasmic CXCR3, nuclear CXCR7 and cytoplasmic CXCR7 were significant predictive factors of histology invasion, whereas cytoplasmic CXCR4 and nuclear CXCR4 were significantly correlated with T and N stage and were associated with the overall survival and disease‐free survival. These results suggest that the quantification and localisation of CXCR3, CXCR4 and CXCR7 expressions in different cell types should be considered using computer‐aided assessment to improve the accuracy of prognosis in GBC.