No abstract

OCT-2, a member of the POU homeodomain family of transcription factors, has been implicated in gastric cancer lymph node metastasis on a single publication so far. Other members of the same family of transcription factors were found to have a role in intestinal metaplasia and gastric cancer (OCT-1) and in trophectoderm differentiation of embryonic stem cells (OCT3/4) via modulation of CDX2. These findings prompted us to evaluate whether OCT-2 could in fact have a role in gastric oncogenesis and lymph node metastasis in human gastric cancer, designing an immunohistochemistry study of the putative expression of OCT-2 on human gastric cancer tissue of 69 surgical archival specimens of intestinal and diffuse type. We could not find expression of OCT-2 on any of our cancer tissues, metaplasia or normal gastric mucosa despite the expression of OCT-2 on tonsil lymphatic cells (tissue test) and normal lymph nodes. We concluded that, based on immunohistochemistry, OCT-2 does not have a role in gastric oncogenesis nor does have any relationship with lymph node metastasis in gastric cancer.