水通道蛋白3在非小细胞肺癌中的表达及与临床病理相关性的研究

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Lung cancer is a major health problem worldwide. The aim of this study is to investigate aquaporin 3 (AQP3) expression and its relationship with the clinicopathologic characteristics of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). METHODS: AQP3 expression and the microvascular density (MVD) of tissue samples from 180 cases with NSCLC were detected by immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: AQP3 expression was negative in 25 (13.9%), positive in 67 (37.2%), and strongly positive in 88 (48.9%) of the 180 cases, which was significantly higher than that in the normal tissue (P < 0.01). A significant correlation was found between AQP3 expression and MVD (P < 0.01), whereas a high MVD was found among patients with strongly positive AQP3 expression. Male patients with positive or strongly positive AQP3 expression had significantly higher expression than female patients did (P=0.003). AQP3 expression was more significantly enhanced in adenocarcinoma than that in squamous cell carcinoma (P < 0.001). Statistical analysis indicated that the positive rate of AQP3 expression in well-differentiated carcinoma was significantly higher than that in poorly differentiated tumors (P < 0.001). Lymph node metastasis was positively correlated with high AQP3 expression (P=0.026). CONCLUSION: AQP3 expression was closely correlated with MVD in NSCLC, whereas high MVD was frequently found in tumors with high AQP3 expression. AQP3, as a therapeutic target for inhibiting high AQP3 expression in NSCLC tissues, may weaken cancer cell proliferation, invasion, and metastasis.