Ito N, Kawata S, Tamura S, Takaishi K, Shirai Y, Kiso S, Yabuuchi I, Matsuda Y, Nishioka M, Tarui S
Second Department of Internal Medicine, Osaka University Medical School, Japan.
Cancer Res. 1991 Aug 1;51(15):4080-3.
Malignant cells in culture express elevated levels of transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-beta 1) mRNA and secrete an abundant amount of TGF-beta protein, but little is known about the production of TGF-beta in human malignant tissues in vivo. We estimated the levels of TGF-beta 1 mRNA expression by Northern hybridization and measured TGF-beta protein using a radioreceptor assay in tumor tissues surgically obtained from six patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). TGF-beta 1 mRNA was expressed at much higher levels in HCC tissues from all the cases compared with normal human liver, suggesting an association of the activated TGF-beta 1 gene transcription with hepatocarcinogenesis. The content of TGF-beta was 207 +/- 121 ng/g wet tissue in the HCC tissue, and it showed correlation with the level of TGF-beta 1 mRNA in the tissue (r = 0.69; P less than 0.05). An immunohistochemical study demonstrated that TGF-beta 1 staining could be observed in HCC cells. These observations suggest that human HCC strongly expresses TGF-beta 1 mRNA in vivo, leading to a high content of TGF-beta protein.
培养中的恶性细胞表达高水平的转化生长因子β1（TGF-β1）mRNA，并分泌大量的TGF-β蛋白，但对于体内人类恶性组织中TGF-β的产生了解甚少。我们通过Northern杂交估计了TGF-β1 mRNA的表达水平，并使用放射受体分析法测量了从6例肝细胞癌（HCC）患者手术获取的肿瘤组织中的TGF-β蛋白。与正常人类肝脏相比，所有病例的HCC组织中TGF-β1 mRNA的表达水平都高得多，提示激活的TGF-β1基因转录与肝癌发生有关。HCC组织中TGF-β的含量为207±121 ng/g湿组织，并且它与组织中TGF-β1 mRNA的水平相关（r = 0.69；P<0.05）。免疫组织化学研究表明，在HCC细胞中可观察到TGF-β1染色。这些观察结果提示，人类HCC在体内强烈表达TGF-β1 mRNA，导致TGF-β蛋白含量很高。
