Correlations Between Hepatocyte Growth Factor/C-met Signal Transduction Pathway And The Invasion, Metastasis In Colorectal Carcinoma

Objective To investigate expression levels of both HGF and c-met in colorectal carcinoma (CRC), study their alterative characters in invasion and metastasis in CRC.Methods The mRNA and protein expression levels of HGF and c-met in CRC and in distal normal tissues which were collected from the 30 patients with CRC were assayed by real-time Quantitative PCR and immunohistochemical S-P methods individually. All investigatory information were statistically analyzed and compared with clinic-pathological data.Results1. In CRC and normal control tissues, positive HGF and c-met expression rates are separately 86.7% (26/30), 90.0% (27/30), and 56.7% (17/30), 63.3% (19/30). In CRC group, the positive co-expression rate is 83.3%. The mRNA and protein expression levels of HGF and c-met are significantly higher than those in distal normal control.2. Overexpressions of HGF and c-met in CRC are individually correlated with tumor invasion, lymph node metastasis and Dukes stage.3. HGF and c-met expression levels in CRC are statistically relative with tumor histological type and pathological grade.4. There are positive correlation between the overexpressions of HGF and c-met, either mRNA or protein, in CRC.Conclusion1. The overexpressions of HGF and c-met in CRC suggest that the activation of HGF/C-met signal transduction pathway.2. The positive correlations between HGF, c-met overexpressions and tumor invasion, lymph node metastasis and Dukes' stage indicate that they play an important role in the invasion and metastasis of colorectal cancer.3. Overexpression of c-met protein combining a positive correlation with HGF in the majority of CRC suggest that there might be a paracrine or autocrine manner in promotion of tumor growth.