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


CONCLUSIONS
The low expression or loss of MTAP gene may be relevant closely to the differentiation degree in lung cancer.
Department of Thoracic Surgery, General Hospital of People's Liberation Army, Beijing 100853, China.
Wei-Min
WM
Dai
Bang-Yin
BY
Li
Chang-Hai
CH
Yu
Xiang-Yang
XY
Chu
Kai-Tai
KT
Zhang
D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002289:Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011683:Purine-Nucleoside Phosphorylase / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000235:genetics*; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics
D012333:RNA, Messenger; D011683:Purine-Nucleoside Phosphorylase; C021784:5'-methylthioadenosine phosphorylase