Study of the expression of mTOR in uterine myoma

【Objective】To investigate the expression of mTOR(mammalian target of rapamycin, mTOR) and its role in the pathogenesis and development of uterine myoma.【Methods】25 patients with uterine myoma who under- went hysterectomy were selected for uterine myoma group and the adjacent hysteromyoma group. Another 25 patients underwent hysterectomy because of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia Ⅲ were also selected for non-hysteromyoma group. Immunohistochemical methods and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction were used to examine the expression of mTOR and the expression level was tested by image analysis system.【Results】The expression level of mTOR mRNA and protein inn uterine myoma group was obviously higher than that of adjacent hysteromyoma group or that of none-hysteromyoma group(P 0.01). But no significant difference was observed in the expression level of mTOR mRNA between adjacent hysteromyoma group and non-hysteromyoma group(P 0.05). There was no signifi- cant difference in the expression level of mTOR mRNA and protein in each group between proliferative phase and secretory phase. 【Conclusions】The expression level of mTOR was higher in uterine myoma group than that in ad- jacent hysteromyoma group and non-hysteromyoma group, which suggested mTOR may involve in the pathogenesis of uterine myoma.