TY - JOUR AB - Gastric cancer remains the third leading cause of cancer‑associated mortality worldwide. The identification of prognostic indicators that are associated with clinical characteristics is urgently required. The aim of the present study was to determine the involvement of epithelial cell transforming 2 (ECT2) in gastric cancer. The results of the present study demonstrated that ECT2 expression was upregulated in human gastric cancer samples. Furthermore, high ECT2 expression was associated with advanced Tumor‑Node‑Metastasis stage and deeper tumor invasion. ECT2 upregulation was further confirmed in several independent publicly available clinical cohorts from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. In addition, patients with gastric cancer, with high ECT2 expression exhibited a significantly shorter overall survival time than those with low ECT2 expression, and Cox regression analysis demonstrated that ECT2 expression was an independent prognostic marker for overall survival time. Characterization of the transcriptome profiles of ECT2 upregulated gastric tumors indicated that ECT2 upregulation may be associated with transcriptional features of cancer stem cells (CSCs). Additionally, BUB1 mitotic checkpoint serine/threonine kinase and E2F transcription factor 7, two genes previously reported to account for the functionality of CSCs, were strongly enriched in ECT2High gastric cancer samples. Taken together, the results of the present study suggest that ECT2 may serve as a novel marker for CSCs and may be a potential prognostic indicator in gastric cancer. AD - Department of Pathology, Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, Sichuan 610072, P.R. China Geriatric Department, Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, Sichuan 610072, P.R. China Department of Pathyphysiology, West China School of Basic Medical Sciences and Forensic Medicine, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610041, P.R. China AU - Gong,Dao-Yin AU - Chen,Xian AU - Yang,Tian‑Lin AU - Wang,Yi AU - Guo,Yu AU - Zeng,Jin‑Hao AU - Chen,Shan‑Ze DA - 2020/10/01 DO - 10.3892/ol.2020.11915 IS - 4 JO - Oncol Lett KW - gastric cancer cancer stem cells epithelial cell transforming sequence 2 PY - 2020 SN - 1792-1074 1792-1082 SP - 54 ST - Upregulation of ECT2 is associated with transcriptional program of cancer stem cells and predicts poor clinical outcome in gastric cancer T2 - Oncology Letters TI - Upregulation of ECT2 is associated with transcriptional program of cancer stem cells and predicts poor clinical outcome in gastric cancer UR - https://doi.org/10.3892/ol.2020.11915 VL - 20 ER -