The Function Of FHIT Gene In The Development Of Tumor

Objectives: The FHIT gene found by Ohta and others in 1996 is a new and uncertain tumor suppresser gene. Although the structure of the protein and itself has b.een known, some argument remained whether its change has tumor speciality. This study is to detect the tchanges on transcription of FHIT gene in oesophagus carcinoma, lung squamous carcinoma, primary carcinoma of liver and their different growing stages and relative normal tissues (including the whole length of cDNA and ORF), and On this basis , taking the DNA as templat, the alternation of FHIT gene structure (exon3-9) was tested by PCR, then the relation beteen FHIT gene and tumor was determi ned.Methods: Nested RT-PCR was used to amplify the whole length of mRNA and open-reading frame of FHIT gene .The eron 3-9 of FHIT gene was amplifie.d by PCR .Results: Nested RT-PCR with the outer and inner primers amplified more abnormal fragments (including shorter fragments and no fragments) from the carcinoma tissues and pre-cancerous tissues comparing the normal tissue (P<0.01or<0.05). Similar results were obtained by PCR with the ORF primers for the amplification of FHIT ORF. The lung squamous carcinoma was divided into groups of long-history smoke and none-history smoke in the study and the change in FHIT gene was compared .the results indicate that the abnormality of this transcription of FHIT gene (including the whole length of cDNA and ORF)greatly increased in the group of long-history smoke .compared with the group of none-history smoke (P<0.05).FHIT gene 3-9 exon was amplified by PCR with the genomic DNA as templats and the results indicated that: the loss of exon in the normal tissue took place in the none-coding region while the loss of the coding region occured in the cancer tissue and pre-cancerous tissue. The frequency of losing exon 5-8 was the highest . It was consistent with the results of the FHIT gene whole length cDAN by RT-PCR.Conclusions: The above results showed that the changes of FHIT gene is probably related to the development of kinds of tumors, which is an important molecular event. FHIT gene can be considered to be a tumor suppresser gene, our studys provided a theoretic and experimental data for further research on the function of FHIT gene.