近日，Cancer Sci杂志上刊登的一项研究中，肿瘤工作者探讨分析了Snail的临床意义，Snail是一种锌指转录因子，存在于胃癌的发展过程中。
为了阐明Snail表达与胃癌细胞肿瘤干细胞样表型和分化状态之间的关系，研究人员采用免疫印迹、RT-PCR技术、实时定量PCR和流式细胞仪技术。
免疫组织化学染色和评价10例正常胃标本以及103临床癌症患者Snail的表达特征，统计分析发现胃癌组织中Snail高表达，高表达Snail的胃癌患者生存预后较差。
此外研究结果表明：胃癌细胞肿瘤干细胞样表型的分化状态与Snail的表达有关联。Snail在胃癌组织中的表达水平与肿瘤细胞的分化，肿瘤生长，远处转移情况和肿瘤分期呈正相关性。Snail表达高的胃癌患者整体存活率比Snail表达低的患者明显降低。多因素回归分析显示，Snail表达是胃癌患者生存预后的独立预测。
因此，研究数据表明，Snail表达可能是一个可靠的独立的胃癌预后因素，临床干预Snail表达潜在的治疗胃癌患者策略。（生物谷：Bioon.com)
doi:10.1111/j.1349-7006.2012.02295.x
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Snail is an independent prognostic predictor for progression and patient survival of gastric cancer.
He H, Chen W, Wang X, Wang C, Liu F, Shen Z, Xu J, Gu J, Sun Y.
The present study investigated the clinical significance of Snail, a zinc-finger transcription factor, in the development and progression of gastric cancer. To elucidate the relationship between Snail expression and dedifferentiation status with cancer stem cell phenotype in gastric cancer cells, we used western blot analysis, RT-PCR, quantitative real-time PCR and flow cytometry. Immunohistochemistry staining and evaluation of Snail expression in 10 human normal gastric samples versus 103 clinicopathologically characterized gastric cancer tissues followed by statistical analyses were applied to evaluate the prognostic value of Snail expression for progression and patient survival of gastric carcinomas. The results showed that functional Snail expression interlinks dedifferentiation status with cancer stem cell phenotype in gastric cancer cells. In addition, expression levels of Snail in gastric cancer tissues were significantly associated with tumor cell differentiation, local tumor growth, lymph node status, distant metastasis and tumor stage. The overall survival rate of gastric cancer patients with high Snail expression was significantly lower than for those patients with low Snail expression. Multivariate Cox regression analyses showed that Snail expression is an independent prognostic predictor for patient survival of gastric carcinomas. Thus, our data suggest that Snail expression could be a reliable independent prognostic factor to predict gastric carcinoma progression, which might open a new avenue for potential clinical intervention with functional Snail expression in gastric cancer patients.
