[Expression and clinical significance of methylthioadenosine phosphorylase gene in patients with non-small cell lung cancer]

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the change of expression of methylthioadenosine phosphorylase (MTAP) gene in patients with non-small cell lung cancer and its clinical significance.

Methods: Thirty fresh samples of cancer with adjacent tissues were collected from 15 patients with lung cancer, 12 males and 8 females, aged 53.6 (38 approximately 72), 8 with squamous cell carcinoma and 7 with adenocarcinoma. The expressions of MTAP mRNA and of its protein were analyzed by RT-PCR and Western blotting.

Results: In 11 out of the 15 tumor samples (73.3%) MTAP mRNA was not expressed or expressed only after the additional 5 circulations. However, the MTAP mRNA expression rate was 93.3% (14/15) in the adjacent tissues. The result in the 11 samples with none or low MTAP mRNA expression was confirmed by Western blot analysis. The low expression rates were not significantly different between lung adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. But the low expression rate of MTAP in intermediate and poorly differentiated lung cancer was significantly higher than that in well-differentiated cancer.

Conclusion: The low expression or loss of MTAP gene may be relevant closely to the differentiation degree in lung cancer.