Clinical significance of mTOR and p-mTOR protein expression in human colorectal carcinomas.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the significance of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and its active form, p-mTOR in colorectal carcinomas.


METHODS
Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of mTOR and p-mTOR proteins in 108, 40 and 40 tissue samples from colorectal carcinoma, normal colonic mucosa and adenomatous polyps samples, respectively. The correlation of mTOR and p-mTOR expression with clinicopathological characteristics of colorectal carcinoma was analyzed.


RESULTS
The positive rates of mTOR and p-mTOR were significantly higher in colorectal carcinoma (61.1% and 61.1%, respectively, p<0.05) than in normal colonic mucosa (7.5% and 2.5%) and adenomatous polyps (27.5% and 20%). Overexpression of total mTOR protein was significantly associated with T1/T2 stage tumors, lymph node metastasis, distal metastasis) and degree of differentiation. p-mTOR overexpression was additionaly linked with degree of differentiation and TNM stage.


CONCLUSIONS
The overexpression of mTOR and p-mTOR may play important roles in colorectal carcinogenesis with relations to the degree of differentiation, invasiveness and metastasis.
Department of Cancer, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
Di
D
Wang
Jian
J
Chen
Fengjie
F
Guo
Hui
H
Chen
Zhi
Z
Duan
Mei-Yan
MY
Wei
Qi-Mei
QM
Xu
Liang-Hua
LH
Wang
Mei-Zuo
MZ
Zhong
D018256:Adenomatous Polyps / Q000378:metabolism; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007413:Intestinal Mucosa / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D058570:TOR Serine-Threonine Kinases / Q000378:metabolism*
C546842:MTOR protein, human; D058570:TOR Serine-Threonine Kinases