Expression and significance of tropomyosin 1 in non-small cell lung cancer

Objective To investigate the expression and significance of tropomyosin 1(TM1) in patients with non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC).Methods RT-PCR,Western blot and immunohistochemistry were applied to detect the expression levels of TM1 in cancer tissues and tumor-adjacent lung tissues of 32 patients with NSCLC and normal lung tissues of 15 patients with chest trauma or inflammation.Results The expressions of TM1 mRNA were comparable among cancer tissues,tumor-adjacent lung tissues and normal lung tissues. However,TM1 protein expression was significantly higher in the normal lung tissues(P0.01),which was lower in cancer tissues and was in between in tumor-adjacent lung tissues. The expression levels of TM1 in different stages of NSCLC were not significantly different.Conclusion The low-expression of TM1 protein may play an important role in pathogenesis of human NSCL,which could become a potential therapeutic target for NSCLC.