Expression And Clinical Significance Of TGFβ1, TGFβRⅡ, Smad4 And Smad7 In Gastric Carcinoma

Purpose: To investigate the expression of transforming growth factorβ1 (TGFβ1) , TGFβreceptorⅡ(TGFβRⅡ), Smad4 and Smad7 in gastric carcinoma, to study their relationship in growth progression of gastric carcinoma and clinical pathologic significance.Methods: For preparation of 109 of gastric carcinomas and the corresponding cancer-adjacent tissue blocks, to made tissue micro-array. Immunohistochemistry was used to determine the expression of TGFβ1, TGFβRⅡ, Smad4 and Smad7 protein in 109 of gastric carcinomas and the corresponding cancer-adjacent tissues, and to analysed the relationship of protein expression and clinical significance in gastric cancer. The results of immunohistochemical staining was to evaluate both the intensity of staining and the proportion of the stined epithelial cells. The percentage of positivity of the tumor cells and the staining intensity were then multiplied in order to generate the immunoreactivity score (IS) for each of the specimens.Results: The expression of TGFβ1, TGFβRⅡand Smad7 were observed in the cytoplasm, and the expression of Smad4 was observed in both cytoplasm and nucleus. The expression of TGFβ1, TGFβRⅡ, Smad4 and Smad7 protein in gastric carcinomas were significantly higher than those in the cancer-adjacent gastric mucosa (p＜0.001, p＜0.001, p＜0.001, p＜0.001). Meanwhile, the expression of TGFβ1, TGFβRⅡand Smad7 were higher in advanced gastric cancer than early gastric cancer (p＜0.01, p＜0.05); whereas the expression of Smad4 was more higher in early gastric cancer(p＜0.001). There was significant correlation between the expression of Smad4 and tumor size, lymph node metastasis, T stage and clinical TNM stage (p＜0.05, p＜0.001, p＜0.001, p＜0.001). Using Kaplan-Meier method to analysed the survival time between positive expression and negative expression of protein. The 5 year survival rate of the negative expression of TGFβRⅡand the positive expression of Smad4 were significantely higher than the positive expression of TGFβRⅡand the negative expression of Smad4 patients (p＜0.05, p＜0.05). Positive relationship was shown between the expression of TGFβ1 and TGFβRⅡ, Smad7 (p＜0.05), and negative relationship was shown between TGFβ1 and Smad4 (p＜0.05)Conclusion: TGFβ1, TGFβRⅡ, Smad4 and Smad7 together take part in the form gastric tumor, and may have some relationship with gastric cancer invasion, metastasis and patient prognosis.