Introduction

Amplification and overexpression of Her2 occurs in a significant number of gastroesophageal adenocarcinomas [1–3]. Recently, Her2 targeted therapy with trastuzumab has been introduced in the treatment of metastatic gastric carcinomas and adenocarcinomas of the gastroesophageal junction [4–7]. Her2 is a client protein of HSP90, a member of the family of heat shock proteins (HSPs), which are considered molecular chaperones, as they are responsible for the correct folding of denatured or translated proteins [8,9]. It has been suggested that HSP90 expression may also modulate the effects of oncogenic Her2 [10], representing a potential mechanism of resistance to Her2 directed drugs. On the other hand, Hsp90 inhibitors may potentiate the effects of anti-cancer drugs targeting client proteins of HSP90 [11]. In breast cancer, for example, additional targeting of HSP90 has been shown to increase trastuzumab efficiency in vivo and in vitro [12,13]. Similar results have been published very recently as well for gastric carcinoma [14]. The few existing ex vivo studies about the impact of the expression and regulation of HSPs in gastric cancer show conflicting results about the prognostic role of HSP90 expression, but they describe a frequent overexpression of this potentially targetable molecule [15–17]. Any possible relationship between HSP90 and Her2, however, has not been investigated in this cancer entity to date.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the relationship between Her2 and HSP90 in gastric carcinomas and carcinomas of the gastroesophageal junction, and its influence on tumor biology and behavior.

Materials and Methods

3. Immunohistochemistry

Immunohistochemistry was performed on FFPE tissue. Preparation of tissue microarrays (TMA) was performed as described before, generating triplicate cores from randomly selected tumor areas with a diameter of 1.0 mm each [19]. The paraffin blocks were freshly cut (3 µm). Slides were dewaxed and rehydrated, with subsequent heat-induced antigen retrieval using 10 mM citrate buffer, pH 6, H₂O₂ blocking using 3% H₂O₂ in aqua destillata and avidin biotin blocking (Avidin/Biotin blocking kit, Vector Laboratories, Inc., Burlingame, CA, USA). The sections were then incubated with antibodies for HSP90 (Abcam, Cambridge, UK) and Her2 (DAKO, Glostrup, DK). Positive and negative controls were included in each reaction.

Positive HSP90 staining was defined as cytoplasmic staining of ≥10% of carcinoma cells (Figure 1). Her2 expression on TMA cores was assessed according to published recommendations for routine Her2 evaluation in gastric carcinoma, including the slight modifications recommended for the use on biopsies [20]: In short, immunohistochemistry 3+ staining was defined as any membranous staining visible at low magnification (objective × 2.5–5), immunohistochemistry 2+ was defined as membranous staining visible at × 10–20 magnification, and immunohistochemistry 1+ staining was defined as weak membranous staining visible only with × 40 magnification. Cases with no visible membranous reactivity were classified as negative (Figure 1).

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Figure 1. Her2 and HSP90 expression in gastric adenocarcinoma.

Gastric adenocarcinoma with (A) negative, (B) score 1+, (C) score 3+ Her2 expression; (D) negative HSP90, (E) low HSP90 and (F) high HSP90 expression.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069098.g001

Evaluation of HSP90 and Her2 expression was performed by two independent observers (SB, RL or AW) and discrepancies were discussed at a multihead microscope to gain a final consent. Only cores with technically unequivocal staining results and sufficient tumor content (>50 tumor cells) were used for final analysis.

4. Fluorescence in situ Hybridization

All cases were also tested for Her2 amplification by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), irrespective of prior immunohistochemical Her2 results. An assay with fluorescence-labeled locus-specific DNA probes for Her2 and chromosome-17 centromeric α-satellite (Chrombios) was hybridized onto 4 μm TMA sections as described before [21,22]. FISH signal evaluation was performed by visual counting using an epifluorescence microscope (Zeiss Axioplan 2, Carl Zeiss Microimaging GmbH) according to standard procedures as recommended in literature [21]. At least 50 invasive tumor cells per case with a minimum of one signal for Her2 gene and centromere(CEP)-17 were randomly selected, and the mean Her2 and CEP17 count was calculated. Cases were classified as amplified when Her2/CEP17 quotient was ≥2. Cases with simultaneously elevated Her2 and CEP17 counts were assigned as polysome when the Her2/CEP17 quotient was <2 [21] (Figure 2).

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Figure 2. Fluorescence in situ analysis of Her2.

(A) Disomy and (B) high level Her2 amplification.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069098.g002

Results

4. Clinicopathological parameters and survival analysis

HSP90, Her2 expression and Her2 status according to FDA and EMEA were associated with lower local tumor burden, absence of lymph node metastases, better tumor differentiation (grading), and intestinal phenotype according to Lauren (p values see Tables 4 and 5). No such associations could be demonstrated evaluating Her2 amplification alone.

factor		HSP90
		neg	pos	p-value
pT category	pT1	4	19	p<0.001
	pT2	16	14
	pT3	59	45
	pT4	119	47
pN category	pN0	41	39	p=0.024
	pN1	24	24
	pN2	32	16
	pN3	101	46
cM category	absent	138	103	p=0.012
	present	60	22
Grading	G1-G2	25	29	p=0.025
	G3-G4	173	96
Lauren	intestinal	65	84	p<0.001
	non-int.	131	40

Table 4. HSP90 expression and pathological parameters.

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factor		Her2 expression				Her2 status
		neg	pos (*)	p-value		neg	pos (**)	p-value
pT category	pT1	5	19	p=0.005		16	8	p=0.002
	pT2	11	20			27	4
	pT3	51	58			100	9
	pT4	95	77			157	15
pN category	pN0	30	51	p=0.108 (p=0.014)#		67	14	p=0.128 (p=0.038)#
	pN1	24	27			47	4
	pN2	22	27			42	7
	pN3	86	69			144	11
cM category	absent	115	138	p=0.1		224	29	p=0.542
	present	47	36			76	7
Grading	G1-G2	14	41	p<0.001		37	18	p<0.001
	G3-G4	148	133			263	18
Lauren	intestinal	48	101	p<0.001		120	29	p<0.001
	non-int.	112	72			178	6

Table 5. Her2 expression and Her2 status and pathological parameters.

* Immunohistochemical score 1+,2+,3+; **according to the FDA and EMEA; #for pNneg vs. pNpos

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Expression of HSP90 (p=0.02) and Her2 (score 1+, 2+ and 3+; p=0.004), but not Her2 status according to the FDA/EMEA (p=0.502), Her2 amplification alone (p=0.802) or elevated Her2 copy numbers (p=0.813) were associated with better prognosis in univariate analysis (Figures 3 and 4). Additional prognostic factors were UICC pT category (p<0.001), presence of lymph node or distant metastases at the time of surgery (p<0.001 each), resection status (p<0.001), younger age at the time of the operation (p=0.024) and intestinal phenotype according to Lauren (p<0.001). Grading (tumor differentiation) or localization (proximal versus distal) had no impact on overall survival. However, HSP90 or Her2 were not independent prognostic factors in multivariate analysis in the whole collective. When analyzing the large group of gastric cancer patients separately though (n=274), presence of any Her2 immunoreactivity (score 1+, 2+ and 3+) emerged as an independent prognostic factor for overall survival (p=0.014) besides pT category, pN category and distant metastases (Table 6). The independent prognostic role of Her2 expression (p=0.024), pT, pN and distant metastases was retained in the subgroup of non-intestinal type tumors (Table 7). Contrary, Her2 expression was not an independent prognostic factor in to the subgroup of purely intestinal type tumors.

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Figure 3. Survival analysis for HSP90.

Univariate analysis showed a strong association between HSP90 expression and better prognosis (n=323, p=0.02).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069098.g003

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Figure 4. Survival analysis for Her2 expression and Her2 status according to FDA/EMEA.

(A, B) Her2 expression, but not (C) Her2 status according to FDA/EMEA was associated with better prognosis in univariate analysis.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069098.g004

factor	Exp(B)	95.0% CI for Exp(B)		p-value
		min	max
pTcategory	1.753	1.335	2.302	<0.001
pNcategory	1.283	1.108	1.487	0.001
cMcategory	1.556	1.041	2.327	0.031
Grading	0.715	0.447	1.144	0.162
Lauren	0.952	0.662	1.370	0.790
Resection-status	1.193	0.897	1.586	0.226
Her2 expression*	0.658	0.472	0.917	0.014

Table 6. Multivariate Analysis for the subgroup of gastric cancer patients (n=274).

* Immunohistochemical score 1+,2+,3+

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factor	Exp(B)	95.0% CI for Exp(B)		p-value
		min	max
pTcategory	1.983	1.361	2.888	<0.001
pNcategory	1.36	1.156	1.599	<0.001
cMcategory	1.581	1.032	2.422	0.035
Grading	0.638	0.278	1.462	0.288
Resection-status	0.962	0.68	1.36	0.825
Her2 expression*	0.643	0.437	0.944	0.024

Table 7. Multivariate Analysis for the subgroup of non-intestinal gastric and gastroesophageal carcinomas (n=194).

* Immunohistochemical score 1+,2+,3+

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Discussion

Gastric carcinomas and adenocarcinomas of the gastroesophageal junction have been shown to express Her2 in a significant number of cases, rendering it a possible valuable molecule for molecular targeting [1–4,7,20]. However, there is a high diversity of the definition of Her2 status in gastric cancer in literature. The definition depends on the detection methods that are used (immunohistochemistry; in situ hybridization) and on the interpretation of the results of the staining and hybridization. For immunohistochemistry, where the proposals of Hofmann and Ruschoff [20,23] are widely accepted as evaluation standard, usually a score 3+ is considered as overexpression. A score of 2+ is considered as equivocal, and a score of 1+ and 0 is considered as negative. However, there are some studies, which consider also weak immunostaining (1+) as a positive reaction [3]. In our study we based the description of Her2 expression (1+, 2+ and 3+) on the results of the survival analysis, where the prognostic impact of a weak immunoreactivity (i.e. 1+) was identical to a 2+ and 3+ immunoscore. Additional and corresponding FISH analysis, which would characterize the amplification status at a genomic level, is only performed in a subset of studies [2,3,7]. A strength of our study is that we present corresponding immunohistochemistry and FISH results of a large number of primary resected gastric carcinomas and carcinomas of the gastroesophageal junction. More than half of the tumors in our case collection of 347 specimens expressed varying degrees of Her2. Ninety-six of them showed only weak immunoreactivity. These cases would have been initially regarded “Her2 negative” by organ specific established scoring systems, without further evaluation by FISH, following the recommendations of the FDA/EMEA: Both institutions recommend that only tumors with an immunoscore of 3+ and tumors with 2+ and additional confirming in situ hybridization should be labeled as Her2 positive and may be candidates for trastuzumab therapy [20,24]. However, as discussed later, our results indicate a certain biologic significance of even weak Her2 immunoreactivity, and argue in favor of considering every positive staining as an indicator for increased Her2 expression. Her2 gene copy number showed a strong correlation with Her2 expression and none of the Her2 negative tumors (immunohistochemically score 0) was amplified. This is in line with observations reported by others [2,3]. Like expected, Her2 expression or amplification was significantly more frequently observed in tumors of intestinal type and better differentiation [25]. Interestingly, a quarter of cases with a weak immunoreactivity (score 1+) showed elevated Her2 copy numbers and a subset of those displayed Her2-amplification. These cases would have been missed following the FDA/EMEA algorithm. Similar results have been reported recently, recommending that not only Her2 immunohistochemically 2+, but also 1+ gastric carcinomas should be evaluated by FISH analysis [26]. We observed a considerable number of discordant cases with either Her2 amplification without significant Her2 expression or vice versa. One explanation for those differences in single cases might be intratumoral heterogeneity of Her2, which has been reported to occur in a significant percentage of gastric cancers [27,28]. We used the same cores within our TMAs to assess both Her2 amplification and expression, so that we can reliably exclude that different tumor areas were chosen for immunohistochemical and FISH analysis, and rather consider our observation as a tumorbiological true finding. The usage of TMAs for biomarker analysis has been shown to be a powerful tool for analyzing molecular markers in large tissue collections with the advantage of homogenous reaction conditions, thus avoiding false negative or false positive staining or hybridization results due to technical reasons. However, some limitations have been reported for molecular alterations with heterogeneous expression patterns [29]. We used a TMA that was constructed for the analysis of various biomarkers in gastric cancer [19]. The cores were randomly taken from various areas of the tumors. The number of three cores is considered as appropriate as a “rule of thumb” covering certain amounts of heterogeneity, avoiding significant missing of information due to loss of cores and allowing the inclusion of even smaller tumors where no more TMA cores could be taken [29]. For assessing Her2 in breast cancer, even less than three cores have been reported to yield satisfactory results [30,31]. For gastric cancer, there are several reports about the limitation of assessing Her2 on superficially taken gastric cancer biopsies due to intratumoral heterogeneity [28,32,33]. These studies have pointed out the risk of false negative results due to missing overexpressed clones. Most studies, though, regarded an immunoscore of 1+ as negative [28,34]. Moreover, intratumoral heterogeneity was reported to be more pronounced for immunohistochemical detection than gene amplification [33,34]. In our study we report any immunoreactivity and have corresponding FISH data for every tumor. The TMA cores were randomly selected covering central and peripheral areas, and not only superficial areas of the tumor. Moreover, the rate of Her2 “positive” cases lies within the range reported in literature. At last, we chose the proposed modification by Ruschoff et al. for assessing Her2 on biopsies [20] for the immunohistochemical evaluation of Her2 on three TMA cores for each tumor, as we did in our previous study on esophageal adenocarcinomas, which show similar degrees of intratumoral heterogeneity of Her2 [21,35,36]. We therefore consider our approach as appropriate for the purpose of this explorative study, yet being aware of its potential weakness and accepting a certain rate of both Her2 and HSP90 false negative tumors. However, the relatively high number of cases and the advantages of homogenous technical conditions may equilibrate this limitation. In case of clinical management, the use of TMAs may harbor the same risk of missing information with consecutive incorrect therapeutic decisions, and in that context investigation of whole tissue sections should strongly be favored over the use of smaller samples [20].

One interesting finding of our study was the considerable rate of cases which were classified as polysome, i.e. expressing elevated Her2 and CEP17 copy numbers below a Her2/CEP17 quotient >2, which is the recommended definition of Her2 amplification. Most of these cases were Her2 1+ or 2+. In breast cancer, there are several publications, which direct towards this yet unclear issue of Her2/CEP17 polysomy in terms of determination of true Her2 status, and there is increasing evidence that Her2/CEP17 polysomy represents rather a phenomenon of co-amplification than true polysomy [37–39].

Studies in breast cancer have also pointed out the limitations of assessment of Her2 status by immunohistochemistry and additional FISH. Immunohistochemistry has been described to lack objectivity producing false-positive or -negative outcomes due to interobserver variability, and both immunohistochemistry and FISH are heavily dependent from technical issues such as fixation and buffering [40,41]. However, major efforts with respect to standardization of protocols and evaluation systems have improved the rate of discordance between immunohistochemistry and FISH results over the last years [42–44]. In consequence, the estimated rate of incorrectly assessed Her2 could be lowered to less than 5% [45]. The evaluation system by the group around Ruschoff, which was applied in the present work, takes into account the tumor specific characteristics of Her2 staining in gastric cancer as opposed to breast carcinoma, and represents a first step towards standardization of Her2 assessment in this tumor entity [20,23].

In literature there are congruent data about the rate of Her2 overexpressed and amplified tumors in gastric cancer but there are still inconsistent results regarding any prognostic value of Her2 in gastric carcinomas and adenocarcinomas of the gastroesophageal junction [2,3,7]. A relatively high number of papers advocating a negative impact of high Her2 levels on survival are faced by a considerable amount of reports which could demonstrate no or the opposite association of Her2 and prognosis [5,46–48]. Using the definition of Her2 positivity according to the FDA/EMEA criteria, which are widely applied for assessing Her2 in gastric cancer, we would not have been able to demonstrate any significant impact on prognosis. This would also have been the case if we had considered an immunoscore of 2+ and 3+ as criterion for Her2 expression, like it was done in other immunohistochemical studies [48]. In contrast, we observed that in our case collection any Her2 immunoreactivity – which also comprised a weak staining (1+) – was associated with less aggressive tumor behavior and turned out to be an independent significant favorable prognostic marker both in the group of gastric carcinoma patients and in the subgroup of non-intestinal type tumors, which showed predominantly weak Her2 immunoreactivity. Thus our results go in line with the few reports that demonstrate a favorable prognostic impact of higher tumoral Her2 expression, e.g. in esophageal adenocarcinomas [49].

Our observation of the prognostic impact of even weak Her2 immunoreactivity was unexpected, especially with regard to the reports of others [3], but represents a highly reliable finding. The large case collection it is based on comprises all stages of primary resected tumors without pre- or perioperative chemotherapy, originates from a single center in Germany and can be regarded as representative in terms of gender and age distribution of the patients, and the prognostic impact of established parameters such as stage and grade. Moreover, the strength of the present study is that every tumor was analyzed for both Her2 expression and amplification, which is comparably provided in recent studies only.

Our results speak in favor of a questioning attitude towards the assessment of Her2 in gastric and gastroesophageal carcinomas, like it has been adopted for Her2 in breast cancer for almost two decades now [50].

Given the likelihood of increased application of trastuzumab or other Her2 directed agents in gastric and gastroesophageal cancer and the increasing number of publications about Her2 in these tumors there will be clearly a need for an exact definition of “Her2 status” that will cover yet unclear findings, like polysomy, heterogeneity [27,28] and cases which lack correlation between gene amplification and expression. This definition should also cover predictive and potentially prognostic value in order to provide a robust tool for further therapeutic decisions in the treatment of gastric cancer patients.

The stability and maturation of Her2 has been shown to be mediated by so called “molecular chaperones” belonging to the family of heat shock proteins (HSPs) [8,9]. HSPs are highly conserved proteins, which are responsible for the accurate folding of other proteins, thereby maintaining cellular integrity and homeostasis [51]. There is evidence, that deregulation of HSPs can be observed in malignant diseases – which may be due to intrinsic antiapoptotic effects but also the altered interaction with other oncogenic molecules [52,53]. One of the most abundant cellular HSPs is HSP90. HSP90 interacts with a large number of proteins, amongst them tyrosine kinases such as Her2 and EGFR, where the interaction with the cytoplasmic kinase domain leads to protein stabilization, but also signaling proteins like Akt, K-ras, Raf-1, and mutated signaling proteins like p53 and v-Src [54,55]. Therefore, HSP90 represents a unique player in cellular homeostasis, and, in consequence, is also regarded as a potential antitumoral target, especially in Her2 positive tumors [55,56].

Inhibitors of HSP90 including Geldanamycin and its derivates (e.g., 17-AAG and 17-DMAG) have already entered clinical application [57–59]. In gastric cancer, preclinical studies of HSP90 inhibitors alone and in combination with other chemotherapeutic drugs or trastuzumab have already been performed [10,60,61]. There are already promising data about enhancing trastuzumab efficacy or even overcoming trastuzumab resistance through HSP90 targeting for breast and also gastric cancer in vitro and in vivo [12–14,62,63]. In addition, dual Her2/HSP90 targeting drugs are being developed [64].

We could verify the postulated association between Her2 and HSP90 expression on the tissue level, and could demonstrate the prognostic role of Her2/HSP90. This points towards a co-regulation of both molecules in vivo. Furthermore, elevated HSP90 levels may render tumors susceptible for anti-HSP90 directed therapy, a prerequisite met by one third of cases of our case collective. Considering recent pharmaceutical advances, either combination therapy with conventional drugs could be a possible approach, or - with regard to the high association with Her2 expression – also and especially as additional approach to anti-Her2 therapy [65]. According to in vitro data [13,66], HSP90 inhibition should result in enhancing the effect of therapy directed against Her2 or could even represent a possible tool for overcoming Her2 resistance. In human gastric cancer, various expression levels of HSP90 can be detected, which may serve as a tissue-based rationale for targeting this molecule. The impact of HSP90 expression on prognosis in gastric cancer patients, however, remains currently unclear: there have been conflicting data about an adverse or - like in our study – favorable influence of HSP90 in gastric carcinomas in different populations and collectives [17].

In summary, we could demonstrate immunoreactivity for Her2 and corresponding gene amplification in a significant subset of gastric and gastroesophageal adenocarcinomas. Our results suggest a favorable prognostic impact of Her2 expression. This warrants further investigations regarding the significance of Her2 non-amplified tumors showing Her2 immunoreactivity on the one hand and the definition of Her2 status in gastric cancers on the other hand. Moreover, the correlation with the expression of Her2 chaperoning HSP90 may indicate a synergistic regulation of these molecules. Targeting HSP90 with or without Her2 may offer additional therapeutic options for gastric carcinoma treatment.

Supporting Information

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mrs Melitta Winkler, Ulrike Buchholz, Claudia-Mareike Pflüger and Andreas Voss for expert technical assistance.