title: Increased expression of endonuclease G in gastric and colorectal carcinomas.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Endonuclease G (EndoG) is a mitochondrial protein that plays a role in DNA fragmentation during apoptosis. In addition, EndoG plays a role in cell proliferation and survival. It may be important to identify EndoG protein expression to predict its function in human cancers. The aim of this study was to explore whether alteration of EndoG expression might be a characteristic of colorectal or gastric carcinoma.
  
  
  METHODS
  We investigated EndoG protein expression in 103 colorectal and 60 gastric carcinoma tissues by immunohistochemistry using a tissue microarray approach.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Expression of EndoG was detected in 72 (70%) of the colorectal carcinomas and 41 (68%) of the gastric carcinomas in cytoplasm. By contrast, normal mucosal cells of both stomach and colon tissues showed no or very weak expression of EndoG. There was no significant association of EndoG expression with clinocopathological characteristics, including invasion, metastasis and stage.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our data indicate that EndoG inactivation by loss of expression may not occur in colorectal and gastric cancers. Rather, increased expression of EndoG in colorectal and gastric cancer cells compared to their normal mucosal epithelial counterparts suggests that neo-expression of EndoG may play a role in both colorectal and gastric tumorigenesis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Nam Jin
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Yoo
authors.forename: Eun Goo
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Jeong
authors.forename: Min Sung
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Chang Hyeok
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Ahn
authors.forename: Sung Soo
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Sug Hyung
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000473:pathology; D004706:Endodeoxyribonucleases / Q000032:analysis*; D015971:Gene Expression Regulation, Enzymologic; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D004706:Endodeoxyribonucleases; C052391:endonuclease G