Abstract:
Objective To investigate the correlation of Mena protein expression with the invasion and metastasis of Mena SNPs with genetic susceptibility in gastric cancers (GC).
Methods A tissue microarray that simulates the invasion and metastasis process of GC was created, and immunohistochemistry was performed to detect the expression of Mena protein. The Mena gene 5 SNP loci genotypes of 188 healthy people and 389 GC patients were assayed using PCR-based LDR analysis.
Results The expression of Mena protein in GC was significantly upregulated and greatly increased in the intestinal-type and mixed-type GC than that in the diffuse-type and was negatively related to the invasion and metastasis of GC. Patients with Mena overexpression had better prognosis. The frequencies of the A and G alleles, as well as the AA, AG, and GG genotypes, at the Mena SNP rs3795443 locus were significantly different between patients with gastric carcinoma and the control groups (OR=2.1489, 95%CI 1.4607~3.1613, P < 0.01). The frequencies of these five Mena gene SNP loci were not significantly related with the survival of patients with gastric carcinoma.
Conclusion The upregulation of Mena expression is involved in maintaining the histological phenotype, invasion, metastasis, and prognosis of gastric adenocarcinoma. Individuals with GG and AG genotypes at the Mena rs3795443 locus have increased risk of gastric carcinoma, which suggests that screening for this genotype would be helpful in assessing the genetic susceptibility of gastric carcinoma.