Gastric Mt1-mmp Of Reck Expression And Its Biological Characteristics Of The Relationship

AIMS: To examine the expression of membrane-type-1 matrix metalloproteinase ( MT1-MMP ) and reversion-inducing cysteine-rich protein with Kazal motifs ( RECK ) in gastric carcinoma, and investigate its clinical significance, at the same time analyze the correlation between MT1-MMP and RECK expression. METHODS: MT1-MMP and RECK expression in surgically resected tissue samples of gastric carcinoma was examined by immunohistochemical method ( two-step method ), and its correlation with clinicopathological factors was analyzed. RESULTS: Among the 44 gastric carcinoma samples, 37(84.1 % ) were stained positive for MT1-MMP, and 31 (70.5%) for RECK. The expression of MT1-MMP was much higher in poorly differentiated gastric carcinoma samples than moderately and well-differentiated samples ( P=0.015 ). The expression level of MT1-MMP was associated with invasive depth of tumor cells ( P=0.007 ), but no difference between sex and lymph node metastasis. On the contrary, the well-differentiated samples showed higher expression of RECK than poorly and moderately differentiated gastric carcinoma samples ( P=0.006 ). The expression level of RECK did not correlate with sex, lymph node metastasis and invasive depth of tumor cells. RECK expression showed no relation to MT1-MMP expression in the gastric carcinoma. CONCLUSION: Overexpression of MT1-MMP in gastric carcinoma may play an important role during tumor differentiation and metastasis, the RECK protein may have positive effects on the tumor differentiation.