Expression Of RON And Its Variants In Human Lung Adenocarcinomas

Obejective To investigate the expression of RON and its variants in human lung adenocarcinomas. Explore the relationship between expression of RON and the differentiated grade of human lung cancers.Methods A total of 106 paraffin-embedded human lung adenocarcinomas and 10 human lung squamous carcinomas from 2003 to 2005 were obtained from the Department of Pathology in the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University. The expression of RON was detected by immunohistochemistry. The levels of RON expression were assessed using the average staining intensity. Statistical analysis were done. Frozen lung cancers(37 human lung adenocarcinomas and 9 human lung squamous carcinomas) were also obtained from the Department of Pathology in the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University. Expression of RON and its variants were detected by Western-blot.Results The positive staining was located in the cytoplasm and cell surface of the tumor cells.RON gene was lowly expressed in human lung squamous carcinomas. High level expression was seen in human lung adenocarcinomas(p<0. 05). Compared with the well-differentiated and moderate-differentiated adenocarcinomas, RON expression in the low-differentiated ones significantly increased(p<0.05).RONvariants were found in human lung adenocarcinomas by Western-blot but not in squamous carcinomas.Conclusions RON express in human lung adenocarcinomas and squamous carcinomas, which are correlated with the tumor type and clinical stage.RON variants can also express in human lung adenocarcinomas but not in squamous carcinomas.