title: Expression of c-kit protein and mutational status of the c-kit gene in osteosarcoma and their clinicopathological significance.
abstract: We examined c-kit protein expression and mutations of the c-kit gene in 40 human osteosarcoma samples to their relationship with clinicopathology and prognosis of the disease. The expression of c-kit protein was evaluated by immunohistochemistry and single-strand conformational polymorphism was performed to evaluate c-kit gene mutations in exons 11 and 17. Expression of c-kit protein occurred in 25 (62.5%) osteosarcoma samples. Patients with osteosarcomas with higher c-kit protein expression levels were significantly more likely to experience local disease recurrence and had a significantly lower survival time than patients with lower c-kit expression. We found no evidence of mutations in exons 11 or 17. This study suggests that c-kit protein expression might serve as a prognostic marker for osteosarcoma, however exons 11 and 17 might not be suitable targets for osteosarcoma treatments based on suppression of c-kit tyrosine kinase activity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Qilu Hospital, School of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, China.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: M Q
authors.initials: MQ
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004252:DNA Mutational Analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012516:Osteosarcoma / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011379:Prognosis; D019009:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-kit / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D015996:Survival Rate
chemical_list: D019009:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-kit