Significance of nm23 Immunoexpression in the Prognosis of Renal Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

Non-metastatic gene 23 (nm23) is a metastasis suppressor gene that is expressed in all tissues and decreased nm23 expression may be linked to poor prognosis. By immunohistochemical staining of nm23 protein antibodies this study examined the prognostic value of nm23 protein expression in 54 renal cell carcinoma (RCC) patients and analysed its relationship with tumour, node, metastases (TNM) surgical stage, Fuhrman nuclear grade, lymph node involvement and survival. Of the 54 RCC cases studied, 11 (20.4%) showed positive lymph node involvement while 43 (79.6%) were lymph node negative. There was no difference in nm23 protein expression between cases with and without lymph node involvement. In addition, nm23 protein expression was not related to TNM stage, Fuhrman nuclear grade or survival. More extensive studies are required to understand the effect of nm23 protein expression on the biological behaviour of RCC.

Targeting Tumor Metastasis by Regulating Nm23 Gene Expression

“…Nm23 family protein also regulate a growth regulatory signals induced by transforming growth factor-Beta 1 (TGF-β1), NGF, platelets derived growth factor (PDGF) and insulin like growth factor (IGF-1) (Otero, 2000). The over expression of Nm23-H1 protein afford variety of cancer such as breast cancer, esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), prostratic lesions, dysplastic prostatic epithelium, neuroblastoma, thyroid, renal cell carcinoma and gastric cancer (SirotkovicSkerlev et al, 2005;Filiz et al, 2010;Li et al, 2010). Over expression of Nm23-H1 in H7721 cells obstruct the expression of some glycosyltransferases, impaired glycosylation of β1 intergrin precursor and down regulated intergrin β1 expression on cell surface resulting in the reduction of cells interaction with fibronectin that abrogated intracellular signals mediating focal adhesion, cell migration and cytoskeleton formation (She et al, 2010).…”