Department of Thoracic Surgery, Thoracic Cancer Center, The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China 510665.
Department of Thoracic Surgery, Guangzhou Medical University Affiliated Cancer Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China 510095.
Dis Markers. 2023 Feb 21;2023:2352945. doi: 10.1155/2023/2352945. eCollection 2023.
T cell immunoglobulin and mucin-containing protein-3 (TIM-3) is an important immune checkpoint, but its role in lung cancer is still not clear. In this study, we investigated TIM-3 protein expression and its correlation with TNF- and IFN- by examining the tissues of patients with lung adenocarcinoma.
We detected the mRNA quantity of TIM-3, TNF-, and IFN- in 40 surgically resected specimens from patients with lung adenocarcinoma by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The protein expression of TIM-3, TNF-, and IFN- was assessed in normal tissues, paracarcinoma tissues, and tumor tissues by western blotting, respectively. The relevance between the expression and clinicopathological information of the patients was analyzed.
The results showed that the expression level of TIM-3 was higher in tumor tissues than normal tissues and paracancerous tissues ( < 0.05). On the contrary, the expression of TNF- and IFN- in tumor tissues was lower than normal tissues and paracarcinoma tissues ( < 0.05). However, the expression levels of IFN- mRNA were not observed to be significantly different between cancerous tissues and adjacent tissues. While TIM-3 protein expression in cancer tissues of patients with lymph node metastasis was higher than in patients without metastasis, the expression of TNF- and IFN- was lower ( < 0.05). Importantly, the expression of TIM-3 was negatively correlated with the expression of TNF- and IFN-, and the expression of TNF- was found to be positively correlated with IFN- in the patient.
The high expression of TIM-3, the low expression of TNF- and IFN-, and the synergistic effect of TNF- and IFN- in patients with lung adenocarcinoma were closely related to poor clinicopathological characteristics. Overexpression of TIM-3 may play an important role in the relationship between TNF- and IFN- secretion and poor clinicopathological characteristics.
T 细胞免疫球蛋白和黏蛋白域蛋白 3（TIM-3）是一种重要的免疫检查点，但它在肺癌中的作用尚不清楚。在本研究中，我们通过检测肺腺癌患者的组织，研究了 TIM-3 蛋白的表达及其与 TNF-α和 IFN-γ的相关性。
我们通过实时定量聚合酶链反应（qRT-PCR）检测 40 例手术切除的肺腺癌患者组织中 TIM-3、TNF-α和 IFN-γ的 mRNA 量。通过 Western blot 分别检测 TIM-3、TNF-α和 IFN-γ在正常组织、癌旁组织和肿瘤组织中的蛋白表达。分析患者的表达与临床病理信息之间的相关性。
结果显示，肿瘤组织中 TIM-3 的表达水平高于正常组织和癌旁组织（<0.05）。相反，肿瘤组织中 TNF-α和 IFN-γ的表达水平低于正常组织和癌旁组织（<0.05）。然而，癌组织中 IFN-γmRNA 的表达水平与邻近组织之间没有观察到显著差异。而 TIM-3 蛋白在有淋巴结转移的患者肿瘤组织中的表达高于无转移的患者，TNF-α和 IFN-γ的表达则较低（<0.05）。重要的是，TIM-3 的表达与 TNF-α和 IFN-γ的表达呈负相关，并且在患者中 TNF-α的表达与 IFN-γ呈正相关。
肺腺癌患者 TIM-3 高表达、TNF-α和 IFN-γ低表达以及 TNF-α和 IFN-γ协同作用与不良临床病理特征密切相关。TIM-3 的过表达可能在 TNF-α和 IFN-γ分泌与不良临床病理特征之间的关系中发挥重要作用。
