THE EXPRESSION OF BCL-2 AND BAX PROTEINS IN GASTRIC CARCINOMA AND PRECANCEROUS LESIONS

Gastric carcinoma is one of the most commonmalignant tumors in China,and great attention hasbeen paid to its carcinogenesis research. In recentyears, it has been found that oncogenes played agreat role in the occurrence and development ofgastric carcinoma. The expression of apoptosis--as-sociated oncogenes, bcl-2 and bax, in early-stagegastric carcinoma and precancerous lesions was ex-amined by us with immunohistochemical method toevaluate their role in the genesis of gastric carcino-ma.MATE…

THE EXPRESSION OF BCL-2 AND BAX PROTEINS IN GASTRIC CARCINOMA AND PRECANCEROUS LESIONS

Objective To investigate the variance of expression of bcl-2 and bax genes in the genesis or gastric carcinoma as well as their relationship. Methods Thirty-five cases of early-stage gastric carcinoma and Twenty-four cases ot chronic atrophic gastritis were studied by immunohistochemical method. Results There were no statistical differences of bcl-2 expression levels between gastric carcinoma and atypical hyperplasia or paracancerous intestinal- epithelial metaplasia(IEM) (P>0.05).There were statistical differences of bcl-2 expression between normal epithe- lial tissues (or non-cancerous IEM) and the other three groups(P<0.05), but no statistical difference between the normal epithelial and the non-cancerous IEM group was observed(P>0.05). The expressions or bax protein were found in the normal epithelial and the other groups in varying degrees,but there were no statistical differences be- tween either two of the groups (P>0.05). The bcl-2/bax ratio was higher in early-stage gastric carcinoma,atypical hy- perplasia and paracancerous intestinal-metaplasia than in the non-cancerous intestinal-metaplasia (P<0.05) and nor- mal epithelial tissues(P<0.01). Conclusion The abnormal expression of bcl-2 protein and bax protein,especially the increased bcl-2/bax ratio, probably play an important role in the course of carcinogenesis or gastric carcinoma.