Expression of survivin in human gastric carcinoma

AIM: To study the expression of survivin, an inhibitor of apoptosis protein, in human gastric carcinomas and gastric carcinoma models of rats. METHODS: With the method of immunohisto-chemical staining, we studied the expression of survivin in 20 cases of chronic gastritis and 56 cases of gastric carcinomas. We used N-methyl-N'nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (MNNG) and high dose sodium-chloride diet to induce rat gastric carcinomas. Survivin expression was studied in glandular stomachs of normal rats, adenocarci-nomas and tissues adjacent to the tumor, as well as in rats during the induction period. RESULTS: Survivin was expressed in 27 of 56 (48.2%) cases of human gastric carcinoma tissues and 1 of 20 (5%) cases of chronic gastritis. It was found that the expression of survivin had no relation with the elements of age, tumor depth, tumor size, and disease stage, but was significantly related to histological type. The positive rate of survivin expression in cases of intestinal type was significantly higher than that in cases of diffuse type (P<0.05). In animal Experiments, survivin expression in glandular stomachs of normal rats, of rats in middle induction period, in adenocarcinomas and tissues adjacent to tumor were 0, 40.0%, 78.3% and 38.9%, respectively. Compared with the survivin expression in normal rats, the differences were significant. CONCLUSION: These data imply that survivin plays an important role in the onset of gastric carcinoma and that high survivin expression is an early event of gastric carcinoma.