Clinical Significance of Gli-1 And Caveolin-1 Expression in the Human Small Cell Lung Cancer

摘要

Background: Lung cancer is the leading causes of cancer-related deaths around the world. Abnormal activation of thehedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway has been found to be involved in the occurrence, invasion, and metastasis of cancers.Autophagy also plays a significant role in the growth and metastasis of cancers. However, the correlation between theHh signaling pathway and autophagy in small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is still poorly understood. This study aimed toinvestigate the significance of Hh signaling pathway and autophagy in SCLC. Materials and Methods: The expressionof the Hh-induced transcriptional factor, glioma associated oncogene-1 (Gli-1) and the autophagy-related moleculecaveolin-1 (Cav-1) and their clinical significance was performed to detect and assay by immunohistochemistry in tissuemicroarray including 70 patients with SCLC. Results: In our study, 47 (67.1%) patients had positive Gli-1 expression,49 (70.0%) patients had positive Cav-1 expression, and 44 (62.9%) patients had negative fibroblastic Cav-1 expression.In SCLC, Gli-1 expression increased markedly, and was closely associated with decreased fibroblastic Cav-1 expression.Furthermore, we also found that Gli-1 expression was closely associated with increased Cav-1 expression. Conclusions:Our findings suggested that abnormal activation of the Hh signaling pathway is closely related to autophagy in SCLC.We envision that novel targets may come with the further investigation of Gli-1 and Cav-1 in carcinogenesis of SCLC.