Expressions of chemokine CXCL12 and its receptor CXCR4 in gastric cancer and their significance

Purpose To investigate the expressions of chemokine CXCL12 and its receptor CXCR4 protein in gastric cancer and the relationship between clinicopathologic parameters and the prognosis.Methods Immuohistochemistry was used to detect the expressions of CXCL12 and CXCR4 in 120 samples of human gastric cancer.The correlation between the expression of CXCL12,CXCR4 and clinicopathologic parameters of the patients with gastric cancer was analyzed respectively.To analyzed the value of CXCL12,CXCR4 and combined assay of the two proteins in predicting the prognosis of patients.Results CXCL12 and CXCR4 were detected in both gastric carcinoma tissues and normal tissues,but the expression level of CXCL12 and CXCR4 were found up-regulated in gastric carcinoma tissues as compared with normal tissues.The expression of CXCL12 and CXCR4 are significantly different(P0.05).The positive expression of CXCL12 was consistent with the positive expression of CXCR4(r=0.276,P0.05),and the expression levels of CXCL12 and CXCR4 were closely correlated with lymph node metastasis and differentiation(P0.05),but not with age,sex,tumor size,depth of invasion,distant metastasis(P0.05).The five-year survival rate of patients whose CXCL12 and CXCR4 positive expression was significantly lower than the patients with negative expression.Conclusion Overexpression of CXCL12 and CXCR4 is correlated with the biologic behavior and prognosis of gastric carcinoma,determination of CXCL12 and CXCR4 is very helpful in predicting of metastasis and evaluating the prognosis of gastric carcinoma.