Expression of RHOC is associated with metastasis of gastric carcinomas.
OBJECTIVE
RHOC, a member of the RAS-related small GTPase protein family, regulates cytoskeletal structures and has the potential to transform cultured cells. It has recently been reported that RHOC contributes to the metastatic phenotype of melanoma cells. The purpose of this study was to clarify its biological relevance to gastric carcinogenesis and metastasis.


METHODS
We examined the expression of RHOC by quantitative RT-PCR in 51 cases of gastric carcinoma tissues from prior surgical cases (intestinal type: 24 cases, diffuse type: 27 cases) and in 8 gastric carcinoma cell lines.


RESULTS
RHOC expression levels in primary tumors were significantly higher in cases with metastasis than in those without metastasis (p = 0.0202; Mann-Whitney U test). RHOC expression levels in primary tumor and their metastatic tumors were significantly higher than their corresponding nonneoplastic mucosa (p = 0.0357, and 0.0173, respectively; Wilcoxon signed rank test). RHOC mRNA expression was confirmed in the gastric carcinoma cell lines.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings suggest that elevated expression of the RHOC gene may be involved in the metastasis of gastric carcinomas and may be a good genetic marker for the prediction of a metastatic potential.
Kondo
Tomohiro
T
Department of Molecular Pathology, Hiroshima University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Hiroshima, Japan.
Sentani
Kazuhiro
K
Oue
Naohide
N
Yoshida
Kazuhiro
K
Nakayama
Hirofumi
H
Yasui
Wataru
W
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000032:analysis*; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness / Q000473:pathology; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology*; D020741:rho GTP-Binding Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000235:genetics; D000075024:rhoC GTP-Binding Protein
D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; C066690:RHOC protein, human; D020741:rho GTP-Binding Proteins; D000075024:rhoC GTP-Binding Protein