Background & objectives: ING3 (inhibitor of growth protein 3) overexpression decreased S-phase cell population and colony-forming efficiency, and induced apoptosis at a p53-mediated manner. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinicopathological and prognostic significance of ING3 expression in colorectal carcinogenesis and subsequent progression.
Methods: ING3 expression was examined by immunohistochemistry on tissue microarray containing colorectal non-neoplastic mucosa (NNM), adenoma and adenocarcinoma. Colorectal carcinoma tissue and cell lines were studied for ING3 expression by Western blot or RT-PCR.
Results: ING3 mRNA was differentially expressed in Colo201, Colo205, DLD-1, HCT-15, HCT-116, HT-29, KM-12, SW480, SW620 and WiDr cells. Carcinomas showed significantly lower ING3 expression than matched NNM at mRNA level (P< 0.05), but not at protein level. Immunohistochemically, ING3 expression was significantly decreased from NNM, adenoma to adenocarcinoma (P< 0.05). ING3 expression was not correlated with age, sex, tumour size, depth of invasion, lymphatic or venous invasion, lymph node metastasis, tumour- node- metastasis staging or differentiation. Kaplan-Meier analysis indicated that ING3 protein expression was not associated the prognosis of the patients with colorectal carcinoma (P< 0.05).
Interpretation & conclusions: Our study showed that downregulated ING3 expression might play an important role in colorectal adenoma-adenocarcinoma sequence. Further studies are required to understand the mechanism.