The Research On The Correlation Between Galectin-1 Expression And Invasion Of Gastric Cancer

Objective By investigating the expression of Gal-1 in gastric cancer and itscorrelation with various clinical pathological parameters and tumor angiogenesis, todetermine its role in malignant progression, and search a new target for clinicaldiagnosis and treatment of gastric cancer.Methods Cancer samples and surgical margin of stomach were collected from 30patients who underwent surgery in Tianjin medical university general hospital fromApril 2006 to April 2007. Real time quantitative RT-PCR and immunohistochemistrywere used to detect the expression of Gal-1 in these samples. And the microvesseldensity(MVD) of these samples were detected by immunohistochemistry at the sametime. All the results were statistically analyzed.ResultsThe expression of Gal-1 mRNA and protein in cancer and the MVD of cancerwere significantly higher than those in tissues of surgical margin of stomach (P＜0.05).There was significantly correlation between the expression of Gal-1 mRNA andprotein in cancer and TNM stage, depth of primary tumor invasion (P＜0.05), but nocorrelation with differentitiation and lymph node metastasis(P＞0.05). And the MVDof cancer is statistically correlated with the depth of primary tumor invasion, TNMstage, lymph node metastasis (P＜0.05).In gastric cancer, there was positive correlation between MVD and the expressionof Gal-1 mRNA and protein (P＜0.05), but no correlation between MVD and theexpression of Gal-1 in surgical margin of stomach tissue(P＞0.05).ConclusionThe Gal-1 is overexpressed in gastric cancer on both mRNA and protein level,which indicates that Gal-1 could be involved in tumorigenesis. Meanwhile, the expression of Gal-1 correlates with depth of primary tumor invasion and TNM stage,which indicates that Gal-1 plays a crucial role in gastric cancer's proliferation andinvasion.The MVD of cancer is significantly higher than that of surgical margin of stomach,and correlates with different depth of primary tumor invasion, lymph node metastasisand TNM stage, which suggests that angiogenesis is vital to the growth and metastasisof gastric cancer.The correlation between MVD and the expression of Gal-1 in gastric cancerindicates that Gal-1 facilitates tumor progression through angiogenesis to somedegree.