Expression of the High Mobility Group 1 mRNA in Gastric Cancer

Park, Dong Il; Son, Hee Jung; Song, Sang Yong; Kim, Jae Jun; Kim, Young Ho; Rhee, Poong Lyul; Koh, Kwang Cheol; Paik, Seung Woon; Rhee, Jong Chul; Choi, Kyoo Wan

Abstract

BACKGROUND/AIMS
High mobility group (HMG) proteins are nonhistone intranuclear architectural proteins involved in transcriptional regulation of gene. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of HMG-1 protein expression in gastric cancer. METHODS: We obtained the biopsy specimens from 12 normal tissue, 14 patients with metaplastic gastritis, 14 patients with chronic atrophic gastritis, and 18 patients with gastric cancer. After performing comparative reverse transcription- polymerase chain reaction using GAPDH for these specimens, we analyzed the expression of HMG-1 mRNA semi-quantitatively. We investigated the relationship between the clinicopathologic findings and the level of HMG-1 mRNA expression in gastric cancer. RESULTS: The mean level of HMG-1/GAPDH ratio was 0.7+/-0.07 in normal tissue, 0.9+/-0.13 in gastritis, and 1.6+/-0.40 in gastric cancer (p<0.05). There was no significant correlation between the levels of HMG-1 mRNA expression and several parameters such as age, gender, tumor size, depth of invasion, differentiation, Lauren's classification, and lymph node metastasis in gastric cancer. CONCLUSIONS: The expression of HMG-1 mRNA was increased significantly in patients with gastric cancer. The function and the mechanism of HMG-1 protein in tumorigenesis and tumor differentiation are still unclear. Thus, further study is needed to elucidate the relationship between HMG-1 expression and tumorigenesis or tumor differentiation.