Expression of integrin α5 in cervical cancer and its significance

Objective To investigate the expression of integrin α5 in cervical cancer, and to explore its relationship with clinicopathological characteristics of patients with cervical cancer. Methods Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of integrin α 5 in cervical cancer tissues of 60 cases and normal cervical paraffin-embeded tissues of 20 cases of benign uterine lesions undergoing hysterectomy from Qingdao Municipal Hospital between January 2014 and December 2017. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to detect the mRNA expression level of integrin α5 in 20 fresh cervical cancer tissues and 20 normal cervical tissues collected from benign cervical lesions in Qingdao Municipal Hospital between January 2018 and July 2018. The relationship between the expression of integrin α5 and the clinicopathological characteristics of patients with cervical cancer was analyzed. Results The positive expression rate of integrin α5 protein in cervical cancer and normal cervical tissues was 63.3% (38/60), 35.0% (7/20), respectively, and the difference was statistically significant (χ2 = 4.893, P < 0.05). The expression of integrin α5 mRNA in cervical cancer was 1.6±0.4 times as high as that in normal cervical tissues (t = 5.529, P < 0.01). The positive expression of integrin α5 protein was associated with lymph node metastasis in cervical cancer patients (Z = -2.636, P = 0.008). Conclusion The high expression of integrin α5 is related to lymph node metastasis of cervical cancer, and integrin α5 may be a new potential target for treatment of cervical cancer. Key words: Uterine cervical neoplasms; Integrin alpha 5; Lymph node metastasis