The clinical value of Vav3 in peripheral blood for predicting lymphatic metastasis of gastric cancer.

Abstract

Overexpression of Vav3, a gene involved in signal transduction, promotes invasion and inhibits apoptosis in several cancers. The clinical value of the protein product of this gene, Vav3, in the peripheral blood of gastric cancer patients is unknown. We hypothesised increased serum Vav3 that related to tissue levels and lymph node metastases. In addition, we further explored its clinical value in respect of linked molecules Rac-1, MMP-7 and ICAM-1 Methods: 120 gastric cancer patients who had radical surgery were enrolled. Immunohistochemistry was used to determine the expressions of Vav3, Rac-1, MMP-7 and ICAM-1 in gastric cancer mucosa and normal mucosa. ELISA was used to detect these proteins in peripheral blood of gastric cancer patients and 100 age- and sex-matched healthy controls.