Study on role of low expression of nucleotide excision repair gene ERCC1 in development of human lung cancer

  Objective   To investigate the association between expression of nucleotide excision repair gene ERCC1(excision repair cross-complementing 1)and the development of human lung cancers.

  Methods   The reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR)method was applied to measure ERCC1 mRNA expression in 150 cases of human lung cancer specimens and 50 normal lung tissues.The protein expressions of ERCC1, P53, C-MYC, K-RAS, BCL-2 and hTERT(human telomerase reverse transcriptase)were assessed by immuno-histochemistry.The effect of some exposure factors on the expression of ERCC1 gene were analyzed.The relationships between ERCC1 gene and cancer related genes P53, C-MYC, K-RAS, BCL-2 and hTERT were investigated.

  Results   Reduced expression levels of ERCC1 were observed in 46 of 150(30.7%)lung cancer specimens and 2 of 50(4.0%)normal lung tissues.Low expression of DNA repair gene ERCC1 was associated with the development of human lung cancers, OR was 10.62(95% CI 2.38-65.98), P < 01 001, the population attributable risk proportion(PAR%)was 8.87%.In the investigation of the exposure factors that may affect the expression of ERCC1 gene.Smoking may suppress the expression of ERCC1 gene.The over-expression of P53 and K-RAS were correlated with the low expression of ERCC1 gene, P values were 0.0388 and 0.0456 respectively.But the expression of C-MYC, BCL-2 and hTERT were not correlated with the status of ERCC1.

  Conclusion   Low expression of ERCC1 may play an important role in the development of human lung caners.And that low expression of gene could be used as a valuable susceptibility biomarker of human lung cancers.