Comparison of Fibrillin-1 and Fibrillin-2 Gene Expression Level in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Tumor Tissue and Tumor Margin Tissue.

Abstract

Background: Esophageal cancer is one of the most devastating cancers of the gastrointestinal tract. We will compare the expression levels of fibrillin-1 (FBN1) and fibrillin-2 (FBN2), a family of extracellular matrix glycoproteins, in esophageal cancer with normal adjacent tumor tissue.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 22 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) tumor samples and their matched adjacent normal tissues were collected from hospitals in Gorgan City (Golestan, Iran) between 2020 and 2022. After RNA extraction and cDNA synthesis, we measured the semi-quantitative gene expression level using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Data from this study were analyzed using SPSS software (version 18), and results were considered statistically significant when the P was <0.05. The primary statistical analyses used in this study were the Paired Samples t test and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test.

Results: The expression of the FBN1 gene decreased in tumor tissue compared to normal tissue (the FBN1 gene fold change=0.5472±0.149, P=0.007), and the FBN2 gene expression increased in tumor tissue compared to normal tissue (the FBN2 gene fold change=7.341±1.299, P<0.0001). We found no significant association between FBN1 and FBN2 gene expression and the clinicopathological features.

Conclusion: The change in FBN1 and FBN2 expression levels in the tumor tissue compared to normal tissue in ESCC suggests that FBN1 and FBN2 genes can be considered therapeutic targets for ESCC.