[Study on the expression of oncogenes in hepatocytes with hepatitis B virus infection]

The expression of oncogene N-ras mRNA and c-myc mRNA in paraffin embedded liver tissues from patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection had been studied by in situ hybridization with biotin labeled probes. The results showed that the detection rates of N-ras mRNA and c-myc mRNA were 37.5% (24/64) and 29.7% (19/64) respectively in the liver tissues of 64 hepatitis B patients, 44.4% (16/36) and 47.2% (17/36) respectively in the liver tissues of 36 hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with HBV infection, and they were detected each in one of 6 normal liver tissue samples. No significant differences were observed among the three groups (P > 0.05). However, in HCC group, 11 out of 36 patients (30.5%) were positive for N-ras mRNA and c-myc mRNA simultaneously, which was higher than that in hepatitis B group (14.1%) (P < 0.05). None of the normal liver samples were N-ras mRNA and c-myc mRNA positive simultaneously. Further more, in the hepatitis group it was noticed that the detection rate of c-myc mRNA in HBV DNA positive cases (by in situ hybridization) was significantly higher than that in HBV DNA negative cases (P < 0.025).