Análise da expressão de marcadores da transição epitelial-mesenquimal no câncer de pulmão.

Abstract

In Brazil, an estimated 28,190 new cases of lung cancer in 2016. Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) is one of the main pathways involved in tumor progression and metastasis. In the case of EMT, epithelial cells decrease the expression marker of epithelial cells, such as E-cadherin, and increase the expression of cytoskeletal markers of mesenchymal cells such as vimentin. A better understanding of these markers involved in the pathogenesis and progression of lung cancer can lead to new and more effective strategies for early detection and targeted treatment. Thus, the objectives of this study were to characterize epidemiologically patients with lung cancer Hospital Ana Nery, evaluate and quantify the expression of E-cadherin and vimentin in lung tissue with and without tumor and correlate the expression of markers with clinical characteristics and the prognosis of patients involved in this study. We conducted a quantitative and prospective cross-sectional study including seven patients with suspected lung cancer treated at the Integrated Oncology Centre (IOC) Hospital Ana Nery, Santa Cruz do Sul / RS. Clinical, epidemiological and tumor samples and non-tumor lung data were obtained. SPSS 20.0 software was used for descriptive analysis. RT-qPCR was used to analyze the expression of E-cadherin and vimentin in tumor samples and tumor-free and determination of the target gene expression levels was performed by relative quantification using the 2-ΔΔCT method. Three patients were excluded from analysis after evaluation of the results of the pathological examination, which indicated the absence of tumor. Among individuals with confirmed lung cancer selected for this study, there was a predominance of Caucasians in advanced adulthood, with high load smoking long period of time. Comorbidities and historically high rate of cancer in the family, were also found. It may be noted that the patients were in the early stages of the disease. By comparing the markers of gene expression between groups of tumor samples versus non-tumor, there was increased expression of both markers in tumor samples compared to control (non-tumor tissue), but this increase was significant only for E-cadherin (p <0.05). Despite the small number of samples, the results suggest that the EMT is not associated with tumor progression in patients with lung cancer non-small cell. In addition, E-cadherin was presented as a possible tumor suppressor gene. So far it was not possible to assess the progression of disease after surgical resection.