Expression profile and prognostic value of SAV1 in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

SAV1 is a human homolog of salvador that contains two protein-protein interaction modules known as WW domains and acts as a scaffolding protein for Hpo and Warts. SAV1 is known to be a tumor suppressor, but its clinical and prognostic implications remain elusive. This study aimed at evaluating the prognostic significance and associated expression of SAV1 in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patients. The expression of SAV1 in tissue specimens of PDAC patients were assayed with immunohistochemistry on a tissue microarray. The correlations between SAV1 expression and clinicopathological characteristics were analyzed by Pearson’s chi-square test, Fisher’s exact test, and Spearman’s rank. The prognostic factors for overall survival were analyzed by univariate and multivariate Cox regression. The percentage of SAV1 expression in PDAC (50.6 %) was significantly lower than those in paratumor tissues (69.9 %) (P = 0.017). Expression of SAV1 was only significantly correlated with histological differentiation (P = 0.025) and N classification (P = 0.009). On multivariate analysis, elevated expression of SAV1 and N0 was a significant favorable prognostic factor of OS. Our study demonstrated for the first time that lower expression of SAV1 might be involved in the progression of PDAC, suggesting that SAV1 may be a potential prognostic marker and target for PDAC therapy.