To date, no prior studies have investigated the expression of LAMPs in relation to tumor budding and autophagy in CRC. Therefore, we are the first to demonstrate moderate to strong expression of LAMP1, LAMP2 and LAMP2A in the tumor stroma and front in CRC tissues. The significant association between the expression of these proteins and the tumor budding indicates their implication in cancer cells’ invasiveness.
Our results demonstrate that all the three major forms of autophagy might be activated in our CRC group.
However, our study has its limitations. The analysis sample is modest, which could explain some of the null associations observed. Future validation studies are needed to test the robustness of our findings. The limited sample size resulted in insufficient statistical power for exploring the potential effect modifiers at different stages of CRC progression (as stage II vs III/IV). However, since CRC is a highly heterogeneous disease stratified analyses could have revealed associations that may have been obscured in the total sample group. Another limitation is that the study is exploratory and correlational, providing only suggestive evidence of causality. Actual experimental manipulation in CRC models would provide stronger mechanistic evidence.
Access the abstract and full analysis here.