Survivin variants' expression in gastric cancer cells and its relationshiop with proliferation and apoptosis

Objective To study the expression of three survivin splicing variants in gastric cancer and normal gastric mucosa and to evaluate relationship among the survivin variants' expression and proliferation, apoptosis in gastric cancer. Methods Real time quantitative RT-PCR was used to analyze survivin variants expression in 77 paired tumors and normal gastric mucosa in frozen samples at the mRNA level. The cell proliferation and apoptosis were measured by Ki-67 immunoln's to chemical analysis and TUNEL method in paraffin-embedded block of same cases, respectively. Results The sarvivin splicing variants were remarkably up-regulated in gastic cancers compared with those in normal tissues (P0.0001). In cancer tissue, the expression rate is 100.0% for survivin, 79.2%(61/77)for survivin-2B, 64.9%(50/77) for survivin-△Ex3,respectively. High expression group of survivin-2B was significantly noticed in the early (Ⅰ+Ⅱ) tumor stage (P= 0.001), in differentiation tumor group (P=0.007) and low tumor invasion group (P= 0.031). About 64.9% (50/77) of samples had survivin-△Ex3 expressin, which showed a significant reverse association with apoptosis index ( P=0.019, r=0.267). There was no correlation between the expression of survinin splicing variant and proliferation index in our study.Conclusion The study showed a significant negative correlation between the expression level of survivin-△Ex3 and the apoptotic index. Survivin-2B expression levels were inversely correlated with the tumor stage, differentiation and invasion of cancers.