Abstract: Objective To investigate the expression of ribophorin Ⅱ (RPN2) in gastric cancer (GC) and its effect on the survival of GC patients. Methods Public data of GC, RT-PCR, Western blotting and immunohistochemical (IHC) staining were employed to analysis the RNA and protein expression of RPN2 in GC. The effect of RPN2 on the clinicopathological situation and prognosis of GC patients were further investigated. Results Public chip data analysis and PCR validation in clinical samples showed that the expression levels of RPN2 mRNA in GC tissues was significantly higher than that in adjacent tissues (P < 0. 05). Western-blotting and IHC detection showed that RPN2 protein expression level was significantly up-regulated in GC tissues. Further analysis found that high RPN2 expression level in GC was significantly associated with the GC differentiation (P = 0. 005), lymph node metastasis (P = 0. 043), TNM stage (P = 0. 002), vascular invasion (P = 0. 015) and nerve invasion (P = 0. 046). The overall survival of patients with lower RPN2 expression level was significantly longer than that of patients with higher RPN2 expression level (χ 2 = 9. 296, P = 0. 002). Furthermore, univariate and multivariate analyses confirmed that high RPN2 expression level was one of the independent prognostic factors affecting overall survival in GC patients (HR = 1. 763, 95% CI: 1. 106-3. 956, P = 0. 014). Conclusion The expression of RPN2 was significantly up-regulated in GC, and high RPN2 expression level was closely related to the malignant progression and poor prognosis of GC, thus it is expected to be a biomarker for the prognosis evaluation of GC. 

Key words: RPN2, gastric cancer, malignant progression, prognosis