Quantitative expression of the homeobox and integrin genes in human gastric carcinoma

Abstract

Abstract. The homeobox (HOX) genes are a large family of regulator genes involved in the control of developmental processes and cell differentiation. The HOX genes encode transcription factors, and an increasing number of studies have shown that these genes may be implicated in the growth and the progression of many types of tumours. The present study investigated the expression of the HOX and integrin genes and their relationships in gastric carcinoma. We analyzed the RNA expression of 13 HOX genes from HOXA, C and D clusters and αV, α5 and α8 integrin genes in 24 gastric cancer samples by quantitative real-time PCR. The results showed that the HOXA2 gene and the α8 integrin gene had a lower expression in tumour samples than in normal gastric mucosas. The comparison between the HOX and integrin genes showed that HOXA2 and αV integrin expression presented the same trend in 83% of the samples. Moreover, in cancer samples that expressed the HOXD11 gene, the expression of αV integrin was lower with respect to normal mucosas. The different roles of HOX and integrin genes in gastric carcinoma remain to be fully elucidated. These findings suggest that the HOX genes may play a critical role in the genesis, maintenance and diffusion of gastric carcinoma.

Expression of pituitary homeobox 1 gene in human gastric carcinogenesis and its clinicopathological significance

“…ClassⅠ human homeobox-containing genes (HOX genes) have been reported to act as a network of transcriptional regulators involved in the process of cell to cell communication during normal morphogenesis, the alteration of which may contribute to the evolution of cancer [8] . Moreover, a recent study concluded that HOX genes may play a critical role in the genesis and progression of gastric cancer [9] .…”

Gene expression signatures for HOXA4, HOXA9, and HOXD10 reveal alterations in transcriptional regulatory networks in colon cancer

“…Numerous genes are differentially expressed during colon carcinogenesis (Bhatlekar, Fields, & Boman, ; Bhatlekar, Viswanathan, Fields, & Boman, ; Boman, Fields, Cavanaugh, Guetter, & Runquist, ; Eberhart et al, ; Gardina et al, ; Lee, Bang, Song, & Lee, ) indicating that regulatory mechanisms involved in tumor development are complex, but deciphering which regulatory mechanisms contribute to colorectal cancer (CRC) needs further clarification. We and others have reported that expression of HOX genes, which are key regulators of stem cells (SCs) during embryogenesis, becomes dysregulated in numerous cancers including colon cancer (Bhatlekar, Fields, et al, ; Freschi et al, ). Our previous studies showed that HOXA4, HOXA9 , and HOXD10 are aberrantly expressed in CRC (Bhatlekar, Addya, et al, ; Bhatlekar et al, ).…”

The roles of HOXB7 in promoting migration, invasion, and anti‐apoptosis in gastric cancer

“…For example, ectopic expression of CDX1 and CDX2 induced the development of intestinal metaplasia of the gastric mucosa in a transgenic mouse model, and their expression levels were significantly increased in gastric adenoma or adenocarcinoma compared with surrounding non‐tumorous tissues in humans . However, recent studies have investigated the global expression of HOX genes and differences in expression levels between normal stomach and gastric adenocarcinoma tissues, and additional studies are required to evaluate the roles of specific HOX genes in gastric carcinogenesis. A recent study examined the expression of all 39 HOX genes in human stomach tissues and compared cancer tissues with non‐tumorous tissues using microarray methods .…”