Abstract
ABSTRACT
Background and Aim
Ferroptosis signaling pathway has been revealed to play a biological role in the tumorigenesis of colorectal cancer (CRC). Our aim was to evaluate the expression pattern and clinical potentials of two ferroptosis‐related genes
FSP
1 and
ACSL4
in colorectal tumors.
Methods
Thirty colorectal tumor tissues and thirty adjacent healthy tissues were subjected to gene expression study. Total RNA extraction from all tissues was completed and cDNA was synthesized from RNA. A qPCR was used for the gene expression analysis. Expression data were evaluated by SPSS software and the clinical importance of the genes was evaluated by ROC test.
Results
Based on our results, the expression levels of
ACSL4
gene in the tumor tissues significantly down‐regulated compared to the healthy tissues (
p
= 0.0005). However, the expression levels of
FSP1
did not show a significant difference in the tumor cancer tissues in comparison with the healthy tissues (
p
= 0.65). Furthermore, the expression levels of
ACSL4
in CRC patients were reversely correlated with the high grade poorly differentiated tumors (
p
= 0.0003, r = ‐0.54). Analysis of the diagnostic value of
ACSL4
using ROC test showed an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.78 (95% CI: 0.6143–0.9229), with a sensitivity of 80% and a specificity of 60% (95% CI: 0.4060–0.7734) and a cut‐off of 1.3.
Conclusion
The expression levels of
ACSL4
, but not
FSP1
, increased significantly in colorectal tumor tissues in comparison with non‐tumor healthy tissues. Based on clinical analysis, it was indicated that
ACSL4
has clinical potentials as a diagnostic biomarker in CRC.