title: Expression of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 and its phosphorylated form is significantly upregulated in patients with papillary thyroid cancer.
abstract: The aim of the present study was to investigate the expression of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) and phosphorylated STAT3 (pSTAT3) in tissues of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) in comparison with the expression in adjacent normal tissues. The expression of STAT3, pSTAT3, fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) and vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C) was examined in tissues of 42 cases of PTC and the adjacent normal tissues of 20 of the 42 PTC cases using immunohistochemistry and western blotting. The association between the expression levels and the clinicopathological features was analyzed. The expression of STAT3, pSTAT3, FGF2 and VEGF-C in the PTC tissues (76.2, 42.9, 81.0 and 73.8%, respectively) was significantly higher than that in the normal tissues (P<0.05). In the PTC tissues, the expression of STAT3 was linearly correlated with the levels of pSTAT3 and VEGF-C (P<0.05). In conclusion, STAT3 and pSTAT3 are significantly upregulated in PTC tissues, and may potentially be used as markers to screen for PTC with lymph node metastasis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Thyroid and Breast Surgery, The Second Hospital Affiliated to Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei 050000, P.R. China.
authors.forename: L I
authors.initials: LI
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Department of Histology and Embryology, Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei 050071, P.R. China.
authors.forename: L I
authors.initials: LI
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Thyroid and Breast Surgery, The Second Hospital Affiliated to Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei 050000, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Qinghuai
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Thyroid and Breast Surgery, The Second Hospital Affiliated to Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei 050000, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Wang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: DI
authors.affiliation: Department of Thyroid and Breast Surgery, The Second Hospital Affiliated to Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei 050000, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Department of Thyroid and Breast Surgery, The Second Hospital Affiliated to Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei 050000, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Linlei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Thyroid and Breast Surgery, The Second Hospital Affiliated to Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei 050000, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Guo
keywords: FGF2; STAT3; VEGF-C; pSTAT3; papillary thyroid cancer