Immunohistochemical study of NF-κB p65, c-IAP2 and caspase-3 expression in cervical cancer

The present study aimed to evaluate the expression of NF-κB p65, c-IAP2 and caspase-3 in human cervical cancer. Immunohistochemistry was performed to determine the levels of NF-κB p65, c-IAP2 and caspase-3 expression in cervical cancer. Our study found overexpression of NF-κB p65 and c-IAP2 and reduced expression of caspase-3 in cervical cancer and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) II-III. The expression of these molecules had no significant differences in the various clinical stages of cervical cancer, but the expression levels of NF-κB p65 and c-IAP2 in poorly differentiated tumors and metastatic lymph nodes were higher than levels in well-differentiated tumors and non-metastatic lymph nodes. By contrast, caspase-3 expression in well-differentiated tumors and non-metastatic lymph nodes was higher than that in poorly differentiated tumors and metastatic lymph nodes. Overexpression of NF-κB p65 and c-IAP2 and reduced expression of caspase-3 in cervical cancer may be important in the tumorigenesis and development of cervical cancer, and they may be useful as biomarkers to estimate progression of cervical cancer.