Expression and Significance of MCM4 in Esophageal Cancer

BACKGROUND OBJECTIVE:MCM4 belongs to minichromosome maintenance(MCM) protein family.It is a DNA replication licensing factor.This study was to explore the expression and significance of MCM4 in esophageal squamous cell cancer(ESCC).METHODS:The expression of MCM4 in 60 specimens of ESCC,paracancer esophageal epithelia,and distant normal esophageal epithelia was detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR).The Correlations of MCM4 expression to clinicopathologic features of the 60 ESCC patients were analyzed.RESULTS:The positive rate of MCM4 was significantly higher in ESCC than in paracancer esophageal epithelia(65.0% vs.33.3%,P0.001);MCM4 was not expressed or weakly expressed in distant normal esophageal epithelia.The positive rate of MCM4 was significantly higher in stage T3 ESCC than in stage T1 ESCC(73.7% vs.25.0%,P0.05).The expression of MCM4 had no correlations to grade,lymph node metastasis,sex,and age.CONCLUSION:The expression of MCM4 might be related to the pathologic stage of ESCC.