Brief Reports
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2004. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 1, 2004; 10(9): 1361-1364
Published online May 1, 2004. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v10.i9.1361
Expression of tumor related gene NAG6 in gastric cancer and restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis
Xiao-Mei Zhang, Shou-Rong Sheng, Xiao-Yan Wang, Liang-Hua Bin, Jie-Ru Wang, Gui-Yuan Li
Xiao-Mei Zhang, Department of Digestive Medicine, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410008, Hunan Province, China
Shou-Rong Sheng, Xiao-Yan Wang, Department of Digestive Medicine, the Third Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410013, Hunan Province, China
Liang-Hua Bin, Jie-Ru Wang, Gui-Yuan Li, Cancer Research Institute, Xiangya Medical College, Central South University, Changsha 410078, Hunan Province, China
Author contributions: All authors contributed equally to the work.
Supported by Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province, No.02JJY2049 and the National “863” Program of China, No.102-10-01-05
Correspondence to: Dr. Shou-Rong Sheng, Department of Digestive Medicine, the Third Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410013, Hunan Province, China. tangyy@public.cs.hn.cn
Telephone: +86-731-4316667 Fax: +972-4-8543058
Received: April 12, 2003
Revised: July 20, 2003
Accepted: September 18, 2003
Published online: May 1, 2004
Abstract

AIM: NAG6 gene is a novel tumor related gene identified recently. This study was designed to examine the expression of this gene in gastric cancer and corresponding normal tissues, and to investigate its role in the occurrence and development of gastric cancer, also to study if the genetic structure of NAG6 was altered in gastric cancer.

METHODS: Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), Northern blot analysis and dot hybridization were used to compare the expression level of NAG6 gene in 42 cases of gastric cancer tissues with their corresponding normal tissues of the same patients respectively. In addition, restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis was adopted to study if the genetic structure of NAG6 was altered in gastric carcinomas.

RESULTS: The expression of NAG6 in 57.1% gastric cancer tissues (25/42) was absent by RT-PCR analysis. The down-regulation rate of NAG6 in gastric cancer tissues was significantly higher than that in corresponding normal tissues (P<0.01). However no correlation between the down-regulation of NAG6 and lymph-node and/or distance metastasis was found in this study (P>0.05). Dot hybridization confirmed the results of RT-PCR. Furthermore, the results of EcoRI RFLP analysis of NAG6 gene demonstrated that 3 of 7 cases of gastric cancer showed loss of 5 kb fragment in comparison with their corresponding normal tissues.

CONCLUSION: NAG6 gene is significantly down regulated in gastric cancer. The loss of genetic materials may be the cause of down-regulation of NAG6 expression. This seems to suggest that NAG6 may represent a candidate of putative tumor suppressor gene at 7q31-32 loci associated with gastric carcinoma. The down-regulation of this gene may play a role in occurrence and development of this disease, however it may not be associated with lymph node and/or distance metastasis.

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