Association Of H Tcf-4 MRNA Expression With Clinicopathological Characteristics Of Colorectal Cancer

BACKGROUND: Human colorectal cancer is one of the most common malignant tumours in china. The development of colorectal carcinoma involving a series of genetic changes including the activation of oncogenes and loss of tumor suppressor genes. hTcf-4 is a member of Tcf gene family, mapping to chromosome band 10q25.3,contained 17 exons. It participates the APC/β -Catenin/Tcf signaling pathway, also known as Wnt pathway, plays a critical role in embryonic patterning, tissue homeostasis and oncogenesis. Activation of the Wnt pathway inhibits GSK-3β activity and thus induces stabilization of β-Catenin, causing translocation of β-Catenin to the nuclear where its association with high mobility group domain factor T-cell factor/lymphocyte enhancer factor(Tcf/Lef)cause transcriptional activation of the targeted genes, such as c-myc , cyclinD1, MMP7, ITF-2 and so on. Recent research focused on the relationship between the cancer and APC, β -Catenin . However, the expression of hTcf-4 and the role of hTcf-4 in human colorectal cancer are still obscure. Based on this information, we conducted this study to investigate the expression of hTcf-4 and the role of hTcf-4 in human colorectal cancer . AIM: To study the expression of hTcf-4 mRNA in human colorectal cancer tissues and to explore the relationship between hTcf-4 gene and occurrence and development of colorectal cancer.METHODS: Fluorescent quantitative PCR was used to detect theexpression of hTcf-4 mRNA in 31 tissues of human colorectal cancer. RESULTS: Compared with normal tissues, upregulation of hTcf-4 mRNA was observed in 31 colorectal cancer tissues (t=2.188, P=0.037) . The expression value of hTcf-4 mRNA in Dukes A,B,C,D was 8.38±1.92, 6.93±1.44 ,6.00±1.26 3,50±0.71 respectively. Analyzed by one-way ANOVA, there were significant differences in the expression of hTcf-4 in different Dukes stage (F=6.454, P=0.002). Moreover, the overexpression of hTcf-4 was significantly correlated with lymph node metastases. whereas the expression of hTcf-4 had no correlation with the age, gender of patients and cell differentiation of colorectal cancer in this study.CONCLUSION: The higher expression level of hTcf-4 mRNA in colorectal cancer tissues suggested that the over-expression of hTcf-4 gene may be related to the development and invasion of colorectal cancer.