Angiopoietin-2 expression is significantly higher in gastric cancer tissues compared to normal tissues and correlates with VEGF expression, advanced stage, and vascular involvement, suggesting a role in tumor angiogenesis.
Hypothesis-generating for Ang-2 in gastric cancer angiogenesis; prospective validation required before clinical consideration.
AIM: To investigate the expression and pathological factors of Angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2) in primary gastric cancers and adjacent normal tissues. METHODS: The expression of Angiopoietin-2 and VEGF were studied in 72 primary gastric cancers and adjacent normal tissues from the same patients by semi-quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: Ang-2 was mainly expression in tumor cells. There were significantly difference between expression of Ang-2 in primary gastric cancer and in adjacent normal tissue samples (P=0.003). It was statistically correlation between Ang-2 and VEGF expression in tumors (P=0.0055). With regard to Ang-2 expression in tumors, there were significant difference between early stage and advanced stage (P=0.017), and significant difference between positive vascular involvement and negative vascular involvement (P=0.032). However, there was no significant difference between moderate-poor differential type and high differential type (P=0.908), between positive lymph node metastasis and negative lymph node metastasis (P=0.752), between positive serosal invasion and negative serosal invasion (P=0.764). The cases with expression of Ang-2 were increasing with advanced stage and vascular involvement. CONCLUSION: The results manifested that Angiopoietin-2, coordinated with VEGF, play role in regulating tumor angiogenesis of gastric cancer.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Sun et al. (2004) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 3 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: