Salehi Pouri, Tafvizi Farzaneh, Kamyab Hesari Kambiz
Department of Biology, Parand Branch, Islamic Azad University, Parand, Iran.
Department of Pathology, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Iran J Pathol. 2019 Fall;14(4):272-278. doi: 10.30699/ijp.2019.85213.1801. Epub 2019 Sep 22.
BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Malignant melanoma is the fatal cutaneous neoplasm which is curable by the early diagnosis. The expression of occludin protein which is an integral membrane protein is altered in an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. Although, recent studies provide sufficient evidence supporting the functional importance of occludin in cancer, the prognostic significance of occludin expression levels in melanoma remains obscure. The aim of this study was to determine occludin expression level and its correlation with clinicopathological features of the patients with melanoma.
The occludin mRNA level was compared between paraffin-embedded tissues of 40 patients with melanoma and 10 subjects with normal skin. The quality and quantity of the RNA was determined and occludin expression level was measured using Real-time PCR and ∆∆CT computational technique.
The occludin mRNA level reduced five-fold in the melanoma patients compared to the control group (=0.000). No significant difference was observed between male and female cases (=0.533). No significant correlation was observed between occludin mRNA level, mitotic count (=0.252), and Breslow levels (=0.171).
We can conclude that down-regulation of occludin expression in the patients with melanoma is a hallmark of cancer progression and it might be used as a prognostic factor. No significant correlation was found between occludin gene expression and clinicopathological characteristics including Clark level, Breslow staging, mitotic count, age and gender (P<0.05).
恶性黑色素瘤是一种致命的皮肤肿瘤，早期诊断可治愈。紧密连接蛋白是一种整合膜蛋白，其表达在上皮-间质转化过程中发生改变。尽管最近的研究提供了充分证据支持紧密连接蛋白在癌症中的功能重要性，但紧密连接蛋白表达水平在黑色素瘤中的预后意义仍不清楚。本研究的目的是确定紧密连接蛋白的表达水平及其与黑色素瘤患者临床病理特征的相关性。
比较40例黑色素瘤患者石蜡包埋组织和10例正常皮肤受试者的紧密连接蛋白mRNA水平。测定RNA的质量和数量，并使用实时PCR和∆∆CT计算技术测量紧密连接蛋白的表达水平。
与对照组相比，黑色素瘤患者的紧密连接蛋白mRNA水平降低了五倍（P=0.000）。男性和女性病例之间未观察到显著差异（P=0.533）。紧密连接蛋白mRNA水平与有丝分裂计数（P=0.252）和Breslow水平（P=0.171）之间未观察到显著相关性。
我们可以得出结论，黑色素瘤患者中紧密连接蛋白表达下调是癌症进展的标志，它可能用作预后因素。紧密连接蛋白基因表达与包括Clark水平、Breslow分期、有丝分裂计数、年龄和性别在内的临床病理特征之间未发现显著相关性（P<0.05）。
