Cancer cell metastasis and anti-cancer drug resistance of malignant tumors are basic problems in cancer eradication. The nm23 gene has been proposed to be a metastatic supressor gene and its down-regulation associated with metastasis or disease
progression in some of the tumors. The P-glycoprotein, known as MDR gene product, is over-expressed in a various human cancers and relates with multi-drug resistance.
We investigated the expression pattern of nm23 gene product and P-glycoprotein in 47 cases of gastric adenocarcinoma according to tumor sites, differentiation, serosal invasion and lymph node metastasis by using immunohistochemical method.
The nm23 gene product and P-glycoprotein were generally expressed in cytoplasm with granular pattern in tumor cells and in some of neighboring normal gastric mucosa.
The overall expressionrates of nm23 protein and P-glycoprotein, were 57% and 67%, respectively.
The nm23 expression rates were inversely correlated with tumor cells differentiation, lymph node metastasis status and serosal invasion (P<0.05).
The P-glycoprotein expression rates were not statically correlated with other pathologic parameters such as tumor location, serosal extension, and lymph node metastasis except tumor cells differentiation.
The results suggest that the down-regulation of nm23 protein might have a role of metastasis and invasion in gastric adenocarcinoma, meanwhile the overexpression of P-glycoprotein plays a role of intrinsic drug resistence of gastric
adenocarcinoma,
meanwhile the overexpression of P-glycoprotein plays a role of intrinsic drug resistence of gastric adenocarcinoma resulting poor prognosis. A retrospective and prospective study The results suggest that the down-regulation of nm23 protein might
have a
role of metastasis and expression.
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