High-level expression of MYH9 predicts poor prognosis in patients with colon cancer

MYH9 (myosin, heavy chain 9, non-muscle) as a gene encodes NM II-A (non-muscle II-A) protein, exists primarily in the cytoplasm. MYH9 consists of 2 mysoin heavy chains with a relative molecular mass of 230 kDa. Previous studies have shown that MYH9 is involved in a number of diseases, including cancer. However, the exact role of MYH9 in colon cancer is still unclear. Therefore, we used a tissue microarray of 90 colon cancer cases using immunohistochemistry and western blotting on four cases of paired fresh tissues. After analyzing both the immunohistochemical scores and clinical data, the results suggest that colon cancer tissues had higher expression of MYH9 than normal colon tissues. Higher expression of MYH9 in colon cancer patients predicted a worse N classification and clinical stage. Additionally, colon cancer patients with high expression of MYH9 had a shorter survival time than those with low MYH9 expression. Further, subgroup analysis revealed that the expression level of MYH9 was associated with colon cancer patients’ survival time in the T3-4 stage, the N0-1 stage, and the clinical stages I-II. Univariate and multivariate analyzes of regression showed that MYH9 is an independent prognostic factor for colon cancer patients. These findings suggested that MYH9 is an oncogene and may be used as an indicator for clinical diagnosis in colon cancer patients. We also demonstrated that MYH9 could serve as an independent prognostic factor for colon cancer patients.