The Quantitive Measurement Of Midkine And Its Expression In Gastric Carcinoma And Colon Carcinoma

Objectives: Aberrant expression of growth factors is often associated with tumorigenesis. Midkine(MK) is a newly founded heparin-binging growth factor that was origionally discovered as the product of a retinoic acid-responsive gene during the differentiation of embryonal carcinoma cells. But it is distinct from other heparin-binding growth factor families. Cancer-related activities of Mk have been reported by many laboratories. These activities include transforming, migrating, mitogenic and angiogenic ones, et al. Compared with normal tissues is over expressed in many types of human carcinomas such as breast, gastric, lung, liver, ovary, urinary, colon carcinomas, neuroblastomas and Willms'tumors. Overexpression are also detected in premalignant stages and early stages in human carcinomas. Since MK is a secreted protein, serum MK levels are expected to increase when tumor tissues express abundant MK, and could be detected. There have been more and more studies on the expression of MK in serum. There were reports about the increased MK levels of serum in many carcinomas, such as esophageal, gastric, hepatocellular, thyriod, colon, pancreatic, bile-duct and prostate carcinomas. The present results indicated that serum MK could serve as a general tumor marker with a good potential for clinical application. It could also be a new target in cancer treatment. The paper studied midkine's relationship with the diagnosis and metastases by measuring the concentration of midkine in serum of preperative gastric carcinoma and colon carcinoma patients.Material and Method: Serum of gastric carcinoma and colon carcinoma patients were collected before surgical treatment. The level of the midkine in serum of 36 cases of gastric carcinoma and 20 cases of...