Clinicopathological features of hypoxia-inducible factor-1α and vascular endothelial growth factor expression in patients with lung cancer

摘要

Objective The aim of the study was to investigate the clinicopathological characteristics of hypoxiainducible factor-1α（HIF-1α） and vascular endothelial growth factor（VEGF） expression in patients with lung cancer.Methods Cancerous and noncancerous tissues were collected post-operation from 115 patients with lung cancers by the self-control method. Total RNA was extracted from the lung tissues. The status of tissue HIF-1α expression and intercellular distribution was observed by immunochemistry using a tissue microarray. The expression levels of circulating HIF-1α and VEGF were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay（ELISA）.Results The expression of serum HIF-1α [（138.3 ± 28.8） μg/L] in the group of patients with lung cancer was significantly higher（P ＜ 0.01） than that in the group of patients with pneumonia [（58.8 ± 14.5） μg/L] and the control group of patients [（24.1 ± 3.3） μg/L]. There was a strong positive correlation of serum HIF-1α levels（r = 0.937, P ＜ 0.01） with serum VEGF levels. The specific concentration of total RNA [（1.52 ± 1.14） μg/mg wet lung tissues] in the cancerous tissues was significantly higher（t = 8.494, P ＜ 0.001） than that in the noncancerous tissues [（0.58 ± 0.33） μg/mg]. The clinicopathological features of HIF-1α expression in lung cancer tissues revealed a significant relationship between positive HIF-1α expression and patient sex（χ~2 = 4.494, P = 0.034）, tumor size（χ~2 = 4.679, P = 0.031）, differentiation degree（χ~2= 8.846, P = 0.012）, and presence of lymphatic node metastasis（χ~2= 6.604, P = 0.037）.Conclusion Abnormal HIF-1α expression in lung cancer is closely related with nucleic acid metabolism and angiogenesis, and it may be helpful in the diagnosis and identification of lung cancer.