Diagnostic and prognostic value of MAPK13 across different cancers.

• Main Author: Lee, Yan Xuan.
• Other Authors: Lim, Kiat Hon Tony
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Science::Biological sciences::Molecular biology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/52704
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Cancer incidence has been rising despite massive efforts dedicated to cancer research. This is especially so in Asia, whereby Colorectal cancer has been the major cause of death. Discovery of novel tumour markers for early diagnosis and prognosis include methods like radiology surgery, cancer screening and chemotherapy. Our group has previously discerned the role of MAPK13 and its role as a potential biomarker for Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA). We further expanded the study of MAPK13 and its role as a tumour marker for 10 different cancers. Immunohistochemistry staining was performed and results showed MAPK13 overexpression in CCA, Pancreatic (PCa), Colon (CC) and Gastric Cancer. Correlation of MAPK13 overexpression with clinicopathologic factors and survival rates was performed on 307 patients using the Pearson’s Correlation Test and Kaplan Meier (KM) survival curves for statistical and survival analyses. Results showed MAPK13 overexpression had significant association with perineural invasion (PNI) and tumour differentiation grade for PCa (p=0.027, 0.012) and CC (p=0.032) respectively. No significant results (p>0.05) were generated for the KM survival curves despite evident trends. We conclude that MAPK13 has limited diagnostic but promising prognostic value. Thus, the role of MAPK13 and its diagnostic and prognostic use should be further investigated with future studies.