| BackgroundGastric cancer is one of the most commonly malignant tumors all over the word, with an increasing annual incidence and mortality. Due to the poor diagnosis for early gastric cancer, most patients are diagnosed at the advanced stage with a poor prognosis. Therefore, how to find out early gastric cancer and the mechanism of invasion and metastasis becomes an urgent problem.Angiogenesis plays an important role in the development of malignant tumors. As one of the important angiogenic growth factors, the role and mechanism of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) has been largely reported previously. VEGF is the most powerful activation for vascular growth. The research reported that, VEGF has two main biological functions, including promoting vascular endothelial proliferation and enhancing vascular permeability. Besides, VEGF can regulate the growth of vessels by two main pathways, one is to combine with endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR2), which is the main functional receptor of VEGF, the other one is other pathways, which contains the up-regulation of avβ6 expression. Thus, VEGF plays an important role in tumor angiogenesis and vascular permeability.As members of the cell adhesion molecular family, integrins mediate cellular adhesion to extracellular (ECM). Integrin avβ6 belongs to one subtype of integrins, which is reported to be expressed in epithelial cancer, and plays a pivotal role in various aspects of cancer progression. Exogenous VEGF can mediated the up-regulation of integrin avβ6 expression. Both integrin avβ6 and VEGF play an important role in invasion and metastasis of gastric cancer, and there is a certain cooperation between the two proteins. But the interaction of integrin avp6 and VEGF is still unclear.As a marker of tumor angiogenesis, micro-vessel density (MVD) are usually used to explore the relation between vascular counts and tumor growth. We often select CD31, CD34 and CD 105 to mark the tumor vessels, then obtain the MVD, and judge whether the blood supply to tumors and process is helpful in diagnosis and therapy.The aim of this study is to explore the expression and correlation among integrin avβ6, VEGF and MVD in gastric cancer, so as to provide new targets and methods for improving patients’survival time with gastric cancer.MethodThe expression levels of integrin avβ6, VEGF and MVD were detected in gastric cancerous and paraneoplastic tissues of 74 cases by immunohistochemistry. The relationship of the three indicators’expression and their clinical significance were analyzed.Results1. The positive expression of integrin avβ6 and VEGF in gastric cancer tissues was 58.0%and 68.0%, respectively. The counts of MVD is 18.66±8.25, which was significantly higher than those in paraneoplastic gastric tissue (P<O.05).2. The expression of integrin<xvP6 was related to invasion depth, degree of differentiation, lymph node metastasis and clinical TNM stage (P<0.01). The expression of VEGF was related to lymph node metastasis and clinical TNM stage (P<0.05). The counts of MVD was associated with degree of differentiation, lymph node metastasis and clinical TNM stage (PO.01).3. Using Spearman correlation analysis, Significant correlation existed between integrin avP6 and VEGF(r=0.546, p<0.01). Integrin avp6 and MVD was positive correlated in gastric cancer(r=0.661, p<0.01). The expression of VEGF and MVD was positive correlated significantly(r=0.651, pO.Ol).Conclusion1. The expression of integrin αvβ6 was significantly higher than that of paraneoplastic gastric tissues. and The expression of integrin αvβ6 was related to invasion depth, degree of differentiation, lymph node metastasis and clinical TNM stage.2. The positive expression of VEGF in gastric cancer was higher than that of paraneoplastic gastric tissues. The expression of VEGF was associated with lymph node metastasis and clinical TNM stage.3. The counts of MVD were higher than those of paraneoplastic gastric tissues. MVD expression was related with degree of differentiation, lymph node metastasis and clinical TNM stage.4. The combined detection of integrin αvβ6, VEGF and MVD may be used for evaluating the invasion and metastasis of gastric carcinoma and might become a potential strategy for patients with gastric cancer. |
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