Expression and significance of angiopoietin-2 in gastric cancer.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the expression and pathological factors of Angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2) in primary gastric cancers and adjacent normal tissues.


METHODS
The expression of Angiopoietin-2 and VEGF were studied in 72 primary gastric cancers and adjacent normal tissues from the same patients by semi-quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry.


RESULTS
Ang-2 was mainly expression in tumor cells. There were significantly difference between expression of Ang-2 in primary gastric cancer and in adjacent normal tissue samples (P=0.003). It was statistically correlation between Ang-2 and VEGF expression in tumors (P=0.0055). With regard to Ang-2 expression in tumors, there were significant difference between early stage and advanced stage (P=0.017), and significant difference between positive vascular involvement and negative vascular involvement (P=0.032). However, there was no significant difference between moderate-poor differential type and high differential type (P=0.908), between positive lymph node metastasis and negative lymph node metastasis (P=0.752), between positive serosal invasion and negative serosal invasion (P=0.764). The cases with expression of Ang-2 were increasing with advanced stage and vascular involvement.


CONCLUSIONS
The results manifested that Angiopoietin-2, coordinated with VEGF, play role in regulating tumor angiogenesis of gastric cancer.
Sun
Xiao-Dong
XD
Department of General Surgery, the Affiliated Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Medical College, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310016, Zhejiang Province, China. s.xiaodong@sohu.com
Liu
Xing-E
XE
Wu
Jin-Min
JM
Cai
Xiu-Jun
XJ
Mou
Yi-Ping
YP
Li
Jun-Da
JD
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D042702:Angiopoietin-2 / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D005753:Gastric Mucosa / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D042461:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism
D042702:Angiopoietin-2; D042461:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A