The Expression Of DLX2in Gastric Cancer Tissues And It Clinicopathological Significance

AIM:To investigate the expression of distal-less homeobox2(DLX2) in gastric cancer and its clinicopathological significance.METHODS:The method of immunohistochemistry was carried out to investigate the expression of DLX2in129gastric cancer tissues and60adjacent normal tissues. After that, the correlation of DLX2expression with clinicopathological features and prognosis of patients with gastric cancer was analyzed.RESULTS:The positive expression of DLX2was detected mainly in nucleus of tumor cells or normal gastric epithelial cells. The positive expression of DLX2was detected in68(52.7%) cases of129gastric cancer tissues and14(23.3%) cases of60adjacent normal tissues. The difference of DLX2expression between gastric cancer tissues and adjacent normal tissues was statistically significant (x2=14.391, P＜0.001). Moreover, high expression of DLX2was detected in48(37.2%) cases of129human gastric cancer tissues but not in adjacent normal tissues. The expression of DLX2correlated with the size of tumor, depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis and tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage (P＜0.05). The increased expression of DLX2was detected in intestinal metaplasia cells, fibroblasts and inflammatory cells around tumor cells. The median survival time of patients with high DLX2expression was significantly shorter than that with low DLX2expression. The former median survival time was only41months, whereas the latter was47months. For patients with high DLX2expression, the cumulative1-and3-year survival rate was89.6%and58.3%, respectively, which was significantly lower than in patients with low DLX2expression (91.4%and70.4%, respectively; x2=4.986, P＜0.026). In addition, the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer was associated with tumor size, tumor location, invasion depth, lymph nodes metastasis, distant metastasis and TNM stage.CONCLUSION:DLX2expression is significantly up-regulated in gastric cancer tissues compared with in adjacent normal tissues. DLX2expression is associated with the size of tumor, depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis and tumor-node-metastasis stage. These results suggest that abnormal expression of DLX2may be involved in the tumor invasion and lymph node metastasis of gastric cancer. The increased expression of DLX2in intestinal metaplasia cells suggests that DLX2may contribute to an early event of gastric cancer development. Moreover, the expression of DLX2may be correlated with the prognosis of gastric cancer patients.