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The G protein-coupled estrogen receptor (GPER/GPR30) may serve as a prognostic marker in early-stage cervical cancer

  • Original Article – Cancer Research
  • Published:
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Abstract

Background

Estrogen signalling is transmitted via various receptors and multiple intracellular signalling pathways. Estrogen receptor alpha (ERα)-mediated transcription of target genes has been demonstrated to be closely linked to human papilloma virus (HPV)-induced carcinogenesis in case of cervical cancer. So far, the role of non-genomic estrogen signals in cervical cancer, e.g. transmitted by the G protein-coupled estrogen receptor (GPER) remains to be rather elusive. Today’s knowledge on the role of GPER in cervical cancer is sparse and—to the best of our knowledge—GPER has not been investigated in context with clinicopathological parameters or prognosis of cervical cancer. Therefore, the current study investigated whether GPER is expressed in cervical cancer tissue. Further, GPER was correlated to clinicopathological parameters, tissue markers of cervical carcinogenesis and to patient overall and recurrence-free survival.

Materials and methods

Cervical cancer tissue was collected from 156 patients during surgery between 1993 and 2002. GPER immunostaining was performed on all the cases and correlated to clinicopathological data. More than half of all patients were diagnosed at advanced stage (FIGO II–IV 93/156; 59.6%) of disease. The large majority of patients presented with tumours of intermediate or high grade (G2–3 140/152, 92.1%). 22 cervical cancer-related deaths (22/156, 14.1%) were documented during the follow-up period.

Results

GPER was detected in various subcellular staining patterns. In 129/156 (82.7%) cases GPER was expressed in the tumour cell cytoplasm (GPERcyt). GPER immunopositivity at the cell membrane (GPERmem) was found in 114/156 (73.1%) cases. While co-occurrence of both membrane and cytoplasmic staining (GPERcyt + GPERmem) was detected in the majority of tissue samples (101/156; 64.7%), only few cases (14/156, 9.0%) were classified as not expressing GPER at all. GPERcyt was positively correlated with tumour grade. Statistical associations of GPER and both p16 and p53 were detected. Finally, immunopositivity of GPERcyt was predictive for favourable overall as well as recurrence-free survival in cervical cancer of early stage (FIGO I).

Conclusion

This retrospective study reports GPERcyt to be associated with improved overall and recurrence-free survival in early-stage cervical cancer. Further investigations are needed thus to determine whether this observation may be of clinical impact. Interestingly, Raloxifene—a GPER-activating selective estrogen receptor modulator—has recently been demonstrated to be preventive for cervical cancer relapse in mice. Whether this effect is only reliant on raloxifene blocking ERα or may also be related to activation of GPER remains to be determined.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Irmgard Wiest for her excellent technical assistance. We would further like to acknowledge Jutta Engel and Max Wiedemann for their help with collecting follow-up data from the Munich Cancer Registry. Studies on GPER were supported by a grant of the Friedrich-Baur-Stiftung to SH. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. This study has been presented as a poster on the yearly meeting of Bavarian Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (BGGF) in 2016. The abstract of the poster presented at this meeting has been published in Geburtshilfe Frauenheilkd 2016; 76-PC24 (Friese et al. 2016).

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Correspondence to Sabine Heublein.

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Friese, K., Kost, B., Vattai, A. et al. The G protein-coupled estrogen receptor (GPER/GPR30) may serve as a prognostic marker in early-stage cervical cancer. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 144, 13–19 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-017-2510-7

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