[An immunohistochemical study on microtubule associated protein-1 of normal and malignant human gastric tissue]

Microtubule Associated Protein-1 (MAP-1) plays an important role for polymerization of tublin to microtubules. Indirect immunohistochemistry using anti-MAP-1 monoclonal antibody was performed in this study. Difference of internuclear MAP-1 staining patterns between normal and malignant human gastric tissues was investigated. Normal gastric tissue had localized MAP-1 positive staining nucleus in corresponding area of generative cell zone of gastric gland. On the other hand, the 75% cases of gastric cancer showed numerous labeled nuclei in most of the cancer tissues, and 25% cases did not show positive staining of nuclei in cancer tissue. The nuclei staining were classified as negative (-), weak granular (+) and strong punctate (++). The tissue staining pattern was fallen into two patterns, uniform and ununiform stained groups. Positive nuclei staining for MAP-1 and staining pattern had no correlation with histological type of gastric cancer, vessel invasion and lymph node metastasis. But post operative 5-years survival rares were 77.3% in uniform stained group and 30.0% in ununiform stained group. Thus, there were relationship between the post operative survival ratio and the staining pattern of nuclei. Internuclear MAP-1 staining pattern was considered to be one of effective parameters on prognostic sign in gastric cancer.