ZNF750 Expression as a Novel Candidate Biomarker of Chemoradiosensitivity in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

ZNF750, an epidermal differentiation regulator, has been suggested to act as a tumor suppressor of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Although a correlation between the epidermal differentiation gene and resistance to chemoradiotherapy (CRT) has been posited, no data regarding the ZNF750 status in ESCC have been reported. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the relationship between ZNF750 expression and response to CRT in ESCC. Eighty-seven patients who had been pathologically diagnosed with ESCC were evaluated in the present study. All patients underwent neoadjuvant CRT, followed by curative esophagectomy. The expression of ZNF750 in pretreatment biopsy samples was immunohistochemically investigated and compared to the histopathological effectiveness of CRT in surgical specimens. High expression of ZNF750 was closely correlated with good sensitivity to CRT (p = 0.016). A univariate analysis showed that high/intermediate expression of ZNF750 was a significant predictive factor for good sensitivity to CRT (p = 0.006). High/intermediate expression of ZNF750 (30% or more) remained an independent predictive factor for sensitivity to CRT in a multivariate analysis (p = 0.033). ZNF750 expression predicts sensitivity to CRT and can be a biomarker that reliably predicts the response of ESCC to CRT.