RegIV expression showing specificity to gastrointestinal tract and its potential role in diagnosing digestive tract neuroendocrine tumor.

Regenerating gene IV (RegIV), a member of the regenerating gene family discovered in 2001, has been found to be involved in malignancy in several different organs including the stomach, colorectum, pancreas and prostate, but the overall expression profile of RegIV has not been reported. To learn more about RegIV, we evaluated its distribution by immunohistochemistry (IHC) in a total of 360 samples including 24 types of normal tissue, 40 benign and malignant lesions, and 18 neuroendocrine tumors. We found that in normal tissues, in addition to its relative specificity for the gastrointestinal tract, RegIV was detected in the adrenal gland and mammary gland. Among all the malignancies of various histological types under evaluation, RegIV was found mostly in adenocarcinomas. Studies on additional sets of colorectal tumor samples showed that RegIV expression was predominant in colorectal adenoma (87.5%) and peritumoral tissue (100%) but not in cancer tissue (30.8%). Among neuroendocrine tumors, RegIV had a relatively restricted expression to those of digestive system.

IGFBP7 plays a potential tumor suppressor role against colorectal carcinogenesis with its expression associated with DNA hypomethylation of exon 1.

Insulin-like growth factor binding-protein-7 (IGFBP7) was obtained from our previous colonic adenocarcinoma (CRC) and normal mucosa suppression subtraction hybridization (SSH) cDNA libraries. By RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry, we found that IGFBP7 was overexpressed in CRC tissue compared to normal tissue. However, our in vitro experiments performed in 10 CRC cell lines showed that IGFBP7 expressed only in SW480 and Caco2 cell lines, which implied an underlying reversible regulatory mechanism. Using methylation-specific PCR (MSP) and bisulfite sodium PCR (BSP), we found that its expression was associated with DNA hypomethylation of exon1. This was further supported by the in vitro study which showed restored IGFBP7 expression after demethylation agent 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine treatment. Correlation analysis between IGFBP7 expression and prognosis indicated that overexpression of IGFBP7 in CRC tissue correlated with favourable survival. Investigation of the functional role of IGFBP7 through transfection studies showed that IGFBP7 protein could inhibit growth rate, decrease colony formation activity, and induce apoptosis in RKO and SW620 cells, suggesting it a potential tumor suppressor protein in colorectal carcinogenesis. In conclusion, our study clearly demonstrated that IGFBP7 plays a potential tumor suppressor role against colorectal carcinogenesis and its expression is associated with DNA hypomethylation of exon 1.

Identification of a novel VNTR polymorphism in C6orf37 and its association with colorectal cancer risk in Chinese population.

BACKGROUND: C6orf37 was a gene up-regulated in colorectal adenoma in our previous study. A variable region of C6orf37 sequence was found when we blasted its full sequence with NCBI nucleotide database. METHODS: RT-PCR and sequencing were conducted to identify the variable region of C6orf37 as VNTR. DHPLC was applied to detect the VNTR genotypes in 122 colorectal carcinoma patients and 166 healthy controls. RESULTS: A novel VNTR sequence found in C6orf37 second exon was composed of 15 base pair consensus sequence encoding 5-amino-acid (G-G-D-F-G). The repeat timePOST alleles contain three repeats (a), 4 repeats (b) and 5 repeats (c), respectively, which produced 3 homozygotes (a/a, b/b and c/c) and 3 heterozygotes (a/b, a/c and b/c). a, b, c allele frequencies were 0.145, 0.304, 0.551, respectively in Chinese population. Heterozygosity (H) was 0.583. Polymorphism information content (PIC) was 0.510. The distribution of genotypes and allele frequencies of the VNTR reached no significant difference between patients and healthy controls and there was no correlation between VNTR polymorphism and colorectal cancer clincopathological features. CONCLUSION: A novel VNTR polymorphism in C6orf37 exists in Chinese population and is not associated with colorectal cancer risk.

[The correlation between polymorphisms of matrix metalloproteinase-2 and -9 genes and colorectal cancer of Chinese patients].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether the polymorphisms of matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) and -9 (MMP-9) promoters contribute to the development and progression of colorectal cancer in Chinese population. METHODS: the PCR-based denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography or PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism technique respectively was applied to analyze the MMP-2 -1306C/T and MMP-9 -1562C/T polymorphisms in normal group (126 individuals) and colorectal cancer group (126 cases). Genotype frequencies were compared between patients and matched controls, and the association of genotypes with clinical-pathological parameters was studied. RESULTS: The frequency of the CC genotype in the MMP-2 gene polymorphism was significantly increased in colorectal cancer patients when compared with controls (P<0.05), and individuals with the CC genotype had an increased risk of developing colorectal cancer compared to those with CT+TT genotypes (OR: 1.959; 95%CI: 1.055-3.637). Significant correlation was found between the depth of tumor invasion and MMP-2 -1306C/T polymorphism in colorectal cancer patients. However, the genotype frequencies of MMP-9 -1562C/T in colorectal cancer patients were similar to those in control subjects. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that MMP-2 -1306 C/T polymorphism may be associated with genetic susceptibility to colorectal cancer and the invasive capability of colorectal cancer in Chinese patients. And it is easier for the CC genotype cancer to invade through bowel wall.