Expression of a novel apoptosis inhibitor-survivin in gastric carcinomas

Objective To study the role of survivin expression in the pathogenesis of gastric carcinoma.Methods Thirty two histologically verified gastric carcinomous and their neighboring noncancerous tissues were obtained.Semi quantitative RT PCR was used to measure survivin mRNA levels.The protein expression of survivin was detected by immunohistochemical assay.Flow cytometry (FCM) was employed to examine the apoptosis index of gastric cancerous tissues.Results Survivin protein and mRNA expression were detected in 20 of 32(62.5%) gastric cancerous tissues.In contrast,no expression of survivin was detected in corresponding noncancerous tissues.The expression of survivin was not related to the size,differentiation,stage and lymph node metastasis of the tumors.Survivin expression was found significantly associated with reduced apoptosis index(3±0.5)% vs(10±0.9)% of no expression, P 0.05)by using FCM.Conclusion The expression of survivin in gastric cancerous tissues is up regulated and is associated with reduced apoptosis index,which indicates that the gene plays an important role during the onset and progression of gastric cancer.Survivin gene would become a new target for gene based therapy of gastric tumors.