Background & objective: MCM4 belongs to minichromosome maintenance (MCM) protein family. It is a DNA replication licensing factor. This study was to explore the expression and significance of MCM4 in esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC).
Methods: The expression of MCM4 in 60 specimens of ESCC, paracancer esophageal epithelia, and distant normal esophageal epithelia was detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The Correlations of MCM4 expression to clinicopathologic features of the 60 ESCC patients were analyzed.
Results: The positive rate of MCM4 was significantly higher in ESCC than in paracancer esophageal epithelia (65.0% vs. 33.3%, P<0.001); MCM4 was not expressed or weakly expressed in distant normal esophageal epithelia. The positive rate of MCM4 was significantly higher in stage T3 ESCC than in stage T1 ESCC (73.7% vs. 25.0%, P<0.05). The expression of MCM4 had no correlations to grade, lymph node metastasis, sex, and age.
Conclusion: The expression of MCM4 might be related to the pathologic stage of ESCC.