Reduced Osteoglycin Protein Expression Correlates with Lymph Node Metastasis and Low Differentiation in Human Gastric Cancer

Background: Gastric cancer (GC) is a highly malignant disease for which the development of novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets is urgently required. Decreased expression of Osteoglycin (OGN) has been observed in the progression of a variety of human cancers; however, the pathologic significance of OGN in GC remains unexplored. We aimed to detect the expression of OGN in gastric cancer tissues, and to evaluated the relationship between OGN expression and the clinico-pathological features in GC patients. Methods In this study, the expression levels of OGN were detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC) with the cohort including 44 gastric cancer samples and 40 non-tumorous samples. The data was statistically analyzed using GraphPad Prism 8.0. Results We found that OGN expression was downregulated in GC tissues compared to non-tumor counterparts. Furthermore, GC samples with lower OGN levels demonstrated higher lymph node metastasis. Histological analysis further confirmed that OGN downregulation was related to lower differentiation status of GC. Conclusions Collectively, our results indicate that dysregulation of OGN might be involved in GC development and that the expression of OGN may serve as a potential biomarker for monitoring of the progression of GC.