Detection of survivin 2α gene expression in thyroid nodules

Functional studies of the survivin splice variants have been performed almost exclusively in various types of cancer and produced remarkable advances in our understanding of cancer biology and cancer genetics.

To observation the expression of survivin 2α in thyroid nodules and estimate its potential as a new molecular marker in thyroid nodules screening and malignant thyroid, as well.

We detected the expression of a splice variant of survivin, survivin 2α, in thyroid nodules.

Expression of survivin 2α mRNA was evaluated with specific primers by Hemi-Nested RT-PCR in 77 thyroid nodules including malignant and benign tumors, non-tumoral (goiter and thyroiditis) as well as surgical margin, non-neoplastic normal tissues adjacent to the malignant lesions.

Our data revealed for the first time the expression of survivin 2α in thyroid nodules. It was detected in 85.7% of non-neoplastic surgical margin tissues, 71.4% of non tumoral, 63.2% of tumoral samples. Also, the expression of survivin 2α in benign tumor samples (64.2%) is more than malignant groups (62.8%).

Survivin 2α expression is the highest in non-neoplastic surgical margin rather than other samples and the lowest expression was that of malignancy. According to the results, it can be concluded that survivin 2α protein may be has a vital protective effect throw survivin quenching due to the high expression in normal tissue compared with lesions.