Expressions Of Caspase-3 And Survivin In Heptocellular Carcinoma And Its Implication

Background Apoptosis is a process of cell death that activelyinduces a suicide process under the control of a series of gene regulators, which is related to the occurrence and development of cancer. Current evidences suggest that apoptosis is controlled by genes such as bcl-2, bax, PCNA, P53, caspase-3 and so on. The exact functions of their proteins are suspensive. In this study, we examined the expression of caspase-3 and survivin to find out the relationship between their changes. Objective To investigate the relationship between the expression of caspase-3 and survivin and its implication in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Method Immunohistochemical technique (streptavidin-biotin peroxidase method and indirect double marks method-different race animal antibody method) was used to observe the expression of caspase-3 and survivin in 48 cases with HCC. Results ?The expression of survivin: The staining of survivin was mainly located in the nucleus and cytoplasma of HCC. The expressions in cirrhosis, noncancerous adjecent liver and HCC were 8%, 5% and 43.8%, respectively. The expression was absent in normal liver. In the area of cirrhosis, the expression was significant lower than that in tumor area(P<0.01). In the area of noncancerous adjacent liver, the expression was significant lower than that in tumor area (P<0.01). (2)The expression of Caspase-3: The staining of caspase-3 was mainly located in cytoplasma. The expressions in normal liver, cirrhosis, noncancerous adjecent liver and tumor were 87.5%, 84%, 85%, 60.4%, respectively. In the area of normal liver, the expression was significant higher than that in tumor area (P<0.05). The expression in the area of cirrhosis was significant higher than that in tumor area (P<0.01). The expression in noncancerous adjacent liver was significant higher than that in tumor area (P<0.01). (3)The relationship between the expression of Survivin and Caspase-3: The negative relationship between the expression of survivin and caspase-3 could be found with statistical significance (r=-0.39, P<0.01). Conclusion Survivin and caspase-3 may play important role in the progress of HCC with the reversed functions, but the relationship with the prognosis of HCC is not still clear.