Differential Expression of FEZ1 Gene in Human Pulmonary Carcinoma

Background: To investigate the expression of Fezl in pulmonary carcinoma and their relationship to clinicopathological factors. Methods: Constructed tissue microarray (TMA) of pulmonary carcinoma with different pathological grade. Microsatellite analysis was performed by using the primers (D8S261 andD8S233) that amplified polymorphic sequences inside or flanking to the FEZ1 in the tumor tissues collected from 32 cases of primary adenocarcinoma. Immunohistochemical S-P technique and Western blot method were performed to detect the expression of Fezl protein in the tumor tissues and accompanying nonmalignant tissues. Results: For TMA, the results demonstrated that 51.88％ (55/106) of adenocarcinoma and 73.11％ (87/119) of squamous cell carcinoma with reduced Fezl expression. For loci D8S261 and D8S233, LOH was found in informative cases was 60.0％ (l 1/18) and 61.0％ (9/15), respectively. Fez1protein was 100％ detectable in normal bronchial epithelium. The Fezl protein was detectable in33.33％ of the samples, expression of Fezl protein was down regulated in tumor tissue is66.67％, the other 5 cases was not done. No correlation was found between the Fezl protein expression and its clinicopathological parameters such as pathological grade, clinical staging (p> 0.05). The results of Western blot represented that the tumors showed lower levels of Fezl protein expression than the normal tissues. Conclusions: Loss of Fezl expression is a frequent event in pulmonary adenocarcinoma and it may be one of the important candidate tumor suppressor genes in carcinogenesis of pulmonary carcinoma. Our findings suggest that its inactivation is-attributable to several factors not only LOH but also some other mechanisms.