Study on the expression of metastasis suppressor gene nm23-H_1 in human lung cancer and its correlation with lymph node metastasis

Objective To explore the relatioship between the expression of nm23 H 1 and the oncogenesis,development and metastasis of lung cancer.Methods Expressional level of nm23 H 1 gene products was detected in 69 human lung cancer and its correlation with lymph node metastasis by immunohistochemistry method.Results The results showed that the expressional level of nm23 H 1 gene was not related to sex,age,stages of cancer and type of histological classification.The expressional level of nm23 H 1 gene was closely related to the degree of cell differentiation and presence of lymph node metastasis from lung cancer.The expressional level of nm23 H 1 in cancer samples was lower than that in normal tissues adjacent to cancer (P0.05).The expression level of nm23 H 1 in prmary cancer with lymph node metastasis was also significantly lower than that in those without lymph node involvement (P0.05).The same results were also found in metastased tumor or lymph node or poorly differentiated tumor compared with those in primary tumor or moderately and well differentiated tumor(P0.01 P0.05 P0.005).Conclusions These results suggest that nm23 H 1 gene is closely realated to lymph node metastasis of lung cancer.The nm23 H 1 gene may be involoved in the lymph node metastasis of lung cancer and play a role in metastasis suppressor gene of tumor.The lower expression level of nm23 H 1 gene predicts metastasis of lung cancer and poor prognosis of the patients,nm23 H 1 gene may be the index in monitoring the status and evaluating the prognosis of the lung cancer. [