Expression of COX-2、bcl-2 and caspase-3 genes in colorectal carcinoma and adenoma

Objective To investigate the mechanism of COX-2 and bcl-2 genes in carcinogenesis of colorectal carcinoma and adenoma.Methods The expression of COX-2,bcl-2 and caspase-3 were detected by immunohistochemically in 28 colorectal carcinomas and 10 normal colorectal tissue.Apoptosis cells were detected by TUNEL.Results The positive expression of COX-2 were 82.1% and 0.0% respectively and the positive expression of bcl-2 were 75.0% and 20.0% respectively and caspase-3 were 46.4% and 90.0% in colorectal carcinomas and normal tissue.Expression of both COX-2 and bcl-2 in colorectal carcinomas were higher than normal tissue.Expression of both COX-2 and bcl-2 in colorectal carcinomal were higher than normal tissue (P0.01).Expression of caspase-3 in colorectal carcinomas were much lower than normal tissue (P0.05).Their expressions were not associated with clinical pathological features of colorectal carcinomas.Apoptosis index was not associated with clinical pathological features of colorectal carcinomas(P0.05).The expressions of COX-2 and bcl-2 were reversely correlated to apoptosis index (r=-0.563,P0.05 and r=-0.578,P0.01 respectively).The expression of caspase-3 were positively correlated to apotosis index (r=0.714,P0.01).Conclusion Expression of COX-2 and bcl-2 in colorectal cancer increase,inhibiting cell apoptosis,but expression of caspase-3 decrease as an important gene promoting cell apoptosis.COX-2、bcl-2 and caspase-3 take place in common pathways in tumor development and progression,and play an important role in carcinogenesis colorectal carcinomas.