食管鳞癌Clusterin表达及其临床相关性分析

IM: To investigate the expression change of clusterin mRNA in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) tissue and clusterin protein levels in pre-operation and matched post-operation serum, in addition, to evaluate its correlation with the clinicopathological parameters. METHODS: Semi-quantitative RT-PCR was used for detecting the full-length clusterin mRNA, and ELISA assay was performed for quantitatively measuring serum concentration of clusterin. RESULTS: Full-length clusterin mRNA is significantly down-regulated in tumor tissues compared with matched adjacent normal tissues. And the serum concentrations of clusterin in post-operation patients with ESCC (median levels: 25.71 μg/ml) were significantly higher than pre-operation (median levels: 3.23 μg/ml) (P<0.0001). And the serum levels of clusterin were dependent on tumor size, however, it were not correlated with the other clinical parameters, such as age, gender, differentiation, tumor grade, lymph node metastasis and biochemical indexes. CONCLUSIONS: The expression of clusterin mRNA was down-regulated or deleted in the tumor tissues, and its serum levels were also decreased in ESCC patients. It was suggested that clusterin might be a potential tumor suppressor gene in ESCC and dynamic measuring its serum levels might aid to evaluate the progress of ESCC.