ZHAO Yong, GAO Jianª²Fei, ZHANG Biª²Cheng, DU Guangª²Zu

    Department of Oncology, Wuhan General Hospital, Guangzhou Military Area Command, Wuhan 430070, China

    ¡¾Abstract¡¿ AIM: To investigate the expressions of survivin and PTEN, and their relationship with cell proliferation and apoptosis in colorectal cancer, and to identify the role of survivin and PTN in colorectal tumorigenesis. METHODS: Flow cytometry was used to detecte the expressions of survivin and PTEN in 20 normal colonic mucosa, 20 adenomas and 54 colorectal cancers. Apoptotic peak was examined in colorectal cancer. Kiª²67 was determined with immunohistochemical SP staining. RESULTS: The expression of survivin in cancer(56.7¡À5.2) was higher than that in adenoma (18.4¡À3.4, P<0.05). In contrast, normal colonic mucosa did not express survivin. The expression of PTEN showed a decrement from normal colonic mucosa(87.6¡À3.1), adenoma(66.4¡À3.2) to colorectal cancer (36.3¡À3.4, P<0.05 respectively). In well and moderately differentiated cancers, survivin expression was significantly lower than that in poor differentiated cancers, while PTEN expression was significantly higher than that in poor differentiated cancer (P<0.05 respectively). However, the expressions had no correlation with patients¬ð age, gender, Dukes stage and lymph node metastasis (P>0.05 respectively). Survivin positive cancers had significantly lower values in apoptosis index than negative tumor did, while PTEN positive cancers had significantly higher values in apoptosis index than negative tumor did (P<0.05 respectively). Kiª²67 labeling index(LI) in survivin positive cancer was higher than that in negative tumor, while Kiª²67 LI in PTEN positive cancer was lower than that in negative tumor (P<0.05 respectively). A significant inverse correlation was observed between the expressions of survivin and PTEN(rs=-0.846, P<0.05). CONCLUSION: Survivin and PTEN may play important roles in human colorectal tumorigenesis through the inhibition of apoptosis and acceleration of proliferation activity. ......