[Relationship between Testin expression and clinicopathological characteristics in nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients]

To investigate the expression of Testin gene, and analyze its possible relationship with the clinicopathological features of human nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

The expression of Testin in nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissues were detected by immunohistochemistry methods, semi-quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and Western blot. The correlations of Testin to clinicopathologic features of nasopharyngeal carcinoma were analyzed.

The positive expression rate of Testin in NPC biopsy tissue was 37.8% (17/ 45), while it was 88.9% (40/45) in the normal tissue; The expression of Testin mRNA was significantly lower than that in the normal tissue (P < 0.01); The expression levels of Testin protein in the NPC biopsy tissue by Western blot were lower than that in the normal tissue (P < 0.01); The expression of Testin in the tumor tissue had no significant correlation with sex, age (P > 0.05); but it had significant correlation with lympho node metastasis, distant metastasis and differentiation degree.

The decreased expression of Testin gene may play an importmant role in the development of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. And thus Testin gene might be a novel candidate of tumor-suppressor. It may be an objective marker for prognostic factor and malignant level for nasopharyngeal carcinoma.