Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications
Expression of seven main Rho family members in gastric carcinoma☆
Section snippets
Materials and methods
Tissue specimens and cell lines. Fifty-three patients with gastric cancer who underwent surgery in our hospital from September of 2000 to March of 2002 were entered in this study. The resected tumor and adjacent non-tumorous tissue specimens were immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen and kept at −70 °C until the extraction of RNA. The patient’s sex, age, tumor size, histological type of the neoplasms, and TNM stage were obtained from surgical and pathological records.
Gastric cancer cell lines
Expression levels of Rho GTPases mRNA in gastric cancer tissues and cell lines
We determined the mRNA expression levels of seven main Rho family members (RhoA, RhoB, RhoC, Rac1, Rac2, Rac3, and Cdc42) in gastric cancer tissues by comparisons with corresponding adjacent non-tumorous tissues (Fig. 1A). The mean expression levels of RhoA, Rac1 mRNA in tumor tissues, 1.12 ± 0.53 and 1.96 ± 1.54, were significantly higher than 0.68 ± 0.17 and 1.12 ± 0.49 in the corresponding unaffected tissues, respectively (p=0.002 and 0.004, Fig. 1B). To seek the role of Rho GTPases expressions in
Discussion
Rho proteins regulate a wide spectrum of cellular processes, including cytoskeletal actin organization [8], [9], cell adhesion [10], motility [11], cell-cycle progression [12], cytokinesis [13], and gene transcription [14]. This diversity of Rho function is reflected in the large number of effector signaling pathways that are activated by various Rho proteins, as well as the intimate linkages between them, making functional investigations complex [15]. There is increasing evidence that Rho
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Outstanding Youth Foundation, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 30325039), and a 973 grant from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (Grant 2002CB713701). We thank Prof. Jiyan Miao, Technician Baohua Song, and Dr. Jianjun Du for help in collecting gastric cancer tissue specimens. We also thank Technician Taidong Qiao and Baojun Chen for excellent technical assistance.
References (29)
- et al.
Chromosomal alterations in paired gastric adenomas and carcinomas
Am. J. Pathol.
(2001) - et al.
The small GTP-binding protein rac regulates growth factor-induced membrane ruffling
Cell
(1992) - et al.
The small GTP-binding protein rho regulates the assembly of focal adhesions and actin stress fibers in response to growth factors
Cell
(1992) - et al.
Small G-protein networks: their crosstalk and signal cascades
Cell Signal
(2000) - et al.
Rho GTPases: signaling, migration, and invasion
Exp. Cell Res.
(2000) - et al.
Regulation of the cytoskeleton by Rho-family GTPases: implications for tumour cell invasion
Semin. Cancer Biol.
(2001) - et al.
Characterization of RhoC expression in benign and malignant breast disease: a potential new marker for small breast carcinomas with metastatic ability
Am. J. Pathol.
(2002) - et al.
Rho, rac, and cdc42 GTPases regulate the assembly of multimolecular focal complexes associated with actin stress fibers, lamellipodia, and filopodia
Cell
(1995) - et al.
Molecular epidemiology, pathogenesis and prevention of gastric cancer
Carcinogenesis
(1999) Antioncogenes and human cancer
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
(1993)
Small GTP-binding proteins
Physiol. Rev.
Rho GTPases and cell migration
J. Cell Sci.
Rho-GTPases and cancer
Nat. Rev. Cancer
ras Gene mutations and expression of Ras signal transduction mediators in gastric adenocarcinomas
Arch. Pathol. Lab. Med.
Cited by (0)
- ☆
Abbreviations: RT-PCR, reverse transcription-PCR.