Expression of HGF and c-met Detected by Tissue Microarray and Relationship with Tumor Angiogenesis in Human Colorectal Cancer

Objective To study hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and its receptor (c-met) expressions in human colorectal cancer and non-neoplasm colorectal mucosa,and the relationship with tumor angiogenesis.Methods Tissue microarrays (TMAs) were made up of 80 cases of colorectal cancer and 80 cases of non-neoplasm colorectal mucosa.The expressions of HGF and c-met were detected by immunohistochemistry (SP).CD105 was used as a marker to account microvessel density (MVD) in tumor tissue.Results HGF was over expressed in 48 cases and c-met was over expressed in 63 cases of colorectal cancer tissue,and the correlation between HGF and c-met positive expression was significant (r=0.231,P0.05).The high expression rate of HGF and c-met in colorectal cancer were significantly higher than that in non-neoplasm colorectal mucosa (χ2=35.387,P0.05;χ2=59.854,P0.05) of colorectal cancer.The overexpression of HGF was correlated with lymph node metastasis (χ2=4.743,P0.05) and TNM staging (χ2=5.576,P0.05).The overexpression of c-met was correlated with differentiation (χ2=15.767,P0.05) and lymph node metastasis (χ2=5.765,P0.05) of colorectal cancer.MVD was different between over-expression and low-expression colorectal cancer tissues of HGF and c-met (t=2.150,P0.05;t=2.052,P0.05).There was statistical correlation between HGF and c-met overexpression (r=0.259,P0.05).The overexpressions of HGF and c-met were correlated with lymph metastasis in moderate differentiation cancer (χ2=13.154,P0.05;χ2=5.371,P0.05).Conclusions The overexpressions of HGF and c-met in colorectal cancer may be related with tumor angiogenesis.Detecting the expressions of HGF and c-met is valuable to estimate the biological character of colorectal cancer.