Seyyed Mehdi Jafari, Mahsa Mahdizadeh, Zeinab Mohammadi,
Volume 19, Issue 1 (4-2025)
Abstract
Background: Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the widespread gastrointestinal tumors in the worldwide, with mortality rates among the highest. In the world, we face more than one million newly diagnosed stomach cancer patients every year. Various factors closely associated with formation of GC. One of these factors is the change in the level of components of the extracellular matrix in the microenvironment of the stomach tumor. Fibulins are one of the secreted glycoproteins of extracellular matrix, which are known as matrix organizers. The purpose of this study is to investigate the changes in fibulins in gastric tumor tissue compared to control samples.
Methods: Scopus, PubMed, and Web of Science databases were searched for articles that examined FBLN gene family and protein expression in patients with gastric cancer and gastric cancer cell lines.
Results: A total of 853 gastric cancer tumor samples, ranging from 8 to 197 per study, were analyzed across eight studies published between 2008 and 2023, all conducted in China. Several gastric cancer cell lines were also included, such as AGS, Kato III, MKN28, MKN45, SNU1, SNU16, NCI-N87, MGC-803, BGC-823, SGC-7901, and HGC27. Tumor size was reported in 4 studies, while histopathological grade and lymph node metastasis were each evaluated in 4 studies.
Conclusion: The downregulation of Fibulin-1 and Fibulin-2 supports their potential tumor-suppressive roles in gastric cancer, while the upregulation of Fibulin-5 is associated to tumor progression and worse prognosis, making it a candidate biomarker for aggressive disease.
