Background and objective: Gap junction intercellular communication (GJIC) plays an important role in regulating homeostasis and differentiation in many tissues. Connexins are gap junction proteins, whose expressions directly affect the function of GJIC. This study was to investigate expressions of connexin 32 and 26 proteins in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and their correlation to clinicopathological characters of NSCLC.
Methods: Immunohistochemistry was applied to detect expressions of connexin 32 and 26 in 77 NSCLC tissues. Correlations of connexin 32 and 26 expressions to smoking, tumor size, histological type, the degree of differentiation, lymph node metastasis and prognosis were analyzed.
Results: The positive rates of connexin 32 and 26 were 51.9% and 40.3% in the 77 samples, which were significantly higher than 20.3% and 30.5% in alveolar epithelium (p = 0.000, r = -0.322; p = 0.013, r = -0.215). Positive expression of connexion 32 was positively correlated with the differentiation degree of NSCLC tissues (p = 0.010, r = 0.345). The one- to five-year survival rates were higher in patients with positive connexion 32 expression than those without (p = 0.005). Moreover, the positive rate of connexin 26 was not correlated to smoking, tumor size, histological type, the degree of differentiation, lymph node metastasis and the postoperative survival time (p > 0.05).
Conclusions: Expression of connexin 32 is closely correlated to the differentiation of NSCLC and affects the prognosis of NSCLC patients. Increasing the expression of connexin 32 may improve the prognosis of NSCLC.