Objective: To study the expression of phospholipase C epsilon-1(PLCE1) and its clinical significance in gastric cancer.
Methods: Surgical specimens were collected from 125 patients who underwent radical gastrectomy between 2005 and 2007 in the Zhejiang Provincial Peoples' Hospital. Expression level of PLCE1 protein was measured by immunohistochemistry in these 125 surgical specimens, which included primary gastric cancer and matched adjacent normal gastric mucosa tissues, and then 41 pairs of above specimens were selected randomly to examine the expression level of PLCE1 mRNA by quantitative reverse transcription PCR(qRT-PCR).
Results: Immunohistochemistry and qRT-PCR showed that both protein and mRNA level of PLCE1 were up-regulated in gastric cancer compared with paired normal gastric mucosa. Univariate analysis demonstrated that the expression of PLCE1 was significantly associated with differentiation degree, invasion depth, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, and TNM stage (all P<0.01). The 5-year survival rate of positive PLCE1 group was significantly lower as compared to negative group (31.2% vs. 54.0%, P<0.01). However, the expression of PLCE1 was not an independent prognostic factor for gastric cancer (P>0.05).
Conclusions: PLCE1 is up-regulated in gastric cancer, which is associated with the malignant biological behaviors of gastric cancer. High expression of PLCE1 suggests poor prognosis.