title: Clinical significance of aberrant mammalian target of rapamycin expression in stage IIIB colon cancer.
abstract: The aim of the present study was to investigate the significance of aberrant expression of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and the activated form of mTOR kinase, phosphorylated mTOR (pmTOR), in human stage IIIB colon cancer. The expression of mTOR and pmTOR was detected by immunohistochemistry in the tumor tissue of stage IIIB colon cancer patients. The association between the expression of mTOR, pmTOR and clinicopathological parameters of patients was analyzed. The positive expression of mTOR and pmTOR was observed to be higher in 75.5% (80/106) and 76.4% (81/106) of the 106 colon cancer specimens, compared with the adjacent normal tissues. The high level of pmTOR expression was found to be significantly higher in the invasive tumor front cells and resulted in a higher risk of mortality. The results suggested that mTOR and pmTOR may be promising clinical markers and present novel molecular targets for designing novel therapeutic strategies to treat this malignancy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Affiliated Nanhua Hospital, Nan Hua University of South China, Hengyang, Hunan 421002, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Meiling
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Guangzhou First People's Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510180, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Baoxiu
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Guangzhou First People's Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510180, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Xiaofei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Guangzhou First People's Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510180, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Chengyin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Weng
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Guangzhou First People's Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510180, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Guangzhou First People's Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510180, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Xisheng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Cancer Center, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510275, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Xiaoshi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Guangzhou First People's Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510180, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Guolong
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Liu
keywords: colon cancer; mammalian target of rapamycin; molecular target therapy; prognosis