Discordant expression of mRNA and protein for urokinase and tissue plasminogen activators (u-PA, t-PA) in endometrial carcinoma
✍ Scribed by Johanna Nordengren; Bertil Casslén; Barbro Gustavsson; Margret Einarsdottir; Roger Willén
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1998
- Tongue
- French
- Weight
- 200 KB
- Volume
- 79
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0020-7136
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✦ Synopsis
Tissue samples were obtained from normal (n ϭ 92), hyperplastic (n ϭ 22) and malignant (n ϭ 35) endometria. Urokinase and tissue plasminogen activators (u-PA, t-PA) were assayed in acetate detergent buffer extracts and their mRNAs quantitated in autoradiograms of Northern blots. The tissue content of u-PA was significantly higher in adenocarcinomas compared to normal and hyperplastic endometria. Tumors with poor differentiation and extensive myometrial invasion had the highest levels. The content of t-PA was increased in hyperplastic endometria but not in adenocarcinomas. The tissue content of t-PA was inversely related to clinical stage and loss of differentiation in malignant tumors. In contrast to the protein data, u-PA mRNA was not higher and t-PA mRNA was much lower in malignant compared to benign tumors. Thus, high tumor tissue content of u-PA does not result from transcriptional regulation, and reduction of t-PA mRNA may indicate down-regulation of transcription or possibly reduced mRNA stability. Furthermore, the discrepancy between protein and mRNA for both activators probably indicates up-regulation of the translation process since decreased degradation of activator proteins is a less likely explanation.