Expression and significance of autophagy-related genes LC3, Raptor, and Rictor in the early gastric cancer tissues

ZHANG Xiangzhi; WU Shuhua; LI Yangyang; WEN Feifei; GAO Xiangqiang; HE Shuang; LIU Mengyao

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1002-266X.2018.24.002

Abstract：Objective To investigate the role and mechanism of autophagy in the gastric carcinogenesis. Methods We selected 30 cases of tissues from the normal gastric mucosa , chronic atrophic gastritis , low grade intraepi-thelial neoplasia (LGIN), and high grade intraepithelial neoplasia (HGIN), and 40 cases of early gastric cancer tissues , which were successively taken as the normal group , gastritis group, LGIN group, HGIN group, and gastric cancer group. The expression of LC3, Raptor, and Rictor of autophagy-related genes was detected by immunohistochemistry.The correla-tion of LC3, Raptor, and Rictor expression, and the relationship between the expression of LC 3, Raptor, and Rictor in ear-ly gastric cancer and the clinicopathological parameters were analyzed.Results The expression of LC3 in the normal group, gastritis group, LGIN group, HGIN group, and gastric cancer group gradually increased.There was no significant difference between the LGIN group and the gastritis group , but there was a statistically significant difference among the oth-er groups (all P＜0.05).The Rictor expression in the gastric cancer group , HGIN group and LGIN group was higher than that in the gastritis group and normal group (P＜0.05).The Raptor expression in the gastric cancer group was lower than that in the HGIN group and LGIN group (P＜0.05).The expression of Rictor in the normal group , gastritis group, LGIN group, HGIN group, and the gastric cancer group gradually increased , and significant difference was found between every two groups (all P＜0.05).The expression of LC3 was negatively correlated with Raptor expression in the LGIN group , HGIN group and gastric cancer group (r＝-0.435,-0.168, and -0.467, respectively; all P＜0.05).The expression of Raptor and Rictor were negatively correlated in the LGIN group , HGIN group, and gastric cancer group (r＝-0.260,-0.312,-0.223, all P＜0.05).The expression of LC3, Raptor and Rictor in the early gastric cancer tissues were cor-related with the degree of tumor differentiation and depth of invasion (both P＜0.05).Conclusions Autophagy can pro-mote the occurrence of gastric cancer by promoting the expression of LC 3, Raptor, and Rictor.LC3, Raptor, and Rictor play a synergistic role in promoting tumorigenesis.