pAkt 단백 발현이 자궁내막암 예후에 미치는 영향

Abstract

The tumor suppressor PTEN acts as a lipid phosphatase, regulates the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt-signaling pathway, and modulates cell cycle progression and cell survival. Somatic mutations of PTEN have been reported in a variety of cancers, especially in endometrial carcinoma. To clarify whether and how the PI3K/Akt pathway relates to endometrial carcinoma, the expression of those pathway-related proteins in patients with endometrial carcinoma were examined. In order to investigate the relationship between phosphorylated Akt (pAkt) expression and prognosis of endometrial cancer patients, 80 patients with endometrial cancer were enrolled. Immunohistochemical analysis and western-blot were performed. Preliminary, western blot analysis from endometrial cancr cell line (Hec-1A and Ishikawa) and normal endometrial cell lines showed increased expression of pAkt in endometrial cancer cells compared to normal cells. The mean age was 52.3 years. Stage I were 59 cases, stage II were 5 cases, stage III were 9 cases, stage IV were 2 cases, and unknown stage were 5 cases. Of 80 endometrial carcinomas, 37 cases (46%) showed positive immunohistochemical staining of pAkt. The survival rate for pAkt negative case was significantly higher than that for pAkt positive cases. These results showed that increased expression level of pAkt was significantly different according to potential aggressiveness of endometrial cancer (Spearman’s correlation coefficient method p = 0.05). The current study demonstrates that pAkt-positive staining is a significant indicator of poor survival for patients with endometrial cancer.