| Theme |
Molecular Biology & GI Tract |
| Title |
Molecular Biology of Human Gastric Carcinoma and Apoptosis |
| Author |
Masato Ishida |
First Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Tottori University |
| Author |
Hisao Ito |
First Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Tottori University |
| [ Summary ] |
A variety of gene alterations accumulate in the carcinogenesis, proliferation and progression of human gastric carcinomas. There are gene alterations, such as p53 gene and various alterations such as c-erbB2 and K-sam, which exist in both well and poorly differentiated carcinomas. Gastric cancer cells show increasing proliferative activity, along with the induction of apoptosis. The apoptotic index(AI) is significantly higher in well differentiated than in poor1y differentiated carcinomas. AI was significantly lower in carcinomas carrying the p53 gene mutation than in those without this mutation. These observations imply that apoptosis may occur in both a cell-cycle-dependent and an independent manner. Preoperative 5FU administration significantly enhanced apoptosis of gastric cancer cells as compared with controls(p<0.05). A human gastric cancer cell line, MKN-74, without the p53 gene mutation was induced to undergo apoptosis by 1 mM 5FU, in the process of which p21/waf1 and bax protein showed higher expression levels. Clarification of the signal transduction involved in apoptosis may allow the development of the new strategies for the treatment of human gastric carcinomas. |