VEGF Expression Evaluation in Patients with Esophageal Cancer by using Reverse Transcriptase Real- Time Polymerase Chain Reaction

Objective: Esophageal cancer is the 8th most important cancer in the world which is responsible for about 1.5 million cases and 1 million morbidity rates per year. One of the most specific regulators of neovascularization is VEGF. VEGF genes are mutated in the different type of esophageal cancers which leads to neovascularization process and tumor metastasis. In this qualitative research work, for the first time, we investigated the VEGF gene expression in esophageal cancer patients in IRAN.

Methods: This study was performed on 30 FFPE (formalin fixed paraffin embedded) (15 specimens were healthy and 15 specimens) were esophageal cancer tissues which were gathered from different hospitals and research centers in Zahedan and Kashan in Iran. We aimed to evaluate the expression of VEGF genes using reverse transcriptase real-time polymerase chain reaction method. PCR reactions for VEGF gene as well as internal control (β-actin) was performed 3 times using 2 -ΔΔCT (Livac) method for all specimens. Then the difference in gene expressions between case and control groups evaluated using the t-test, in which p ≤ 0.05 was considered to be significant.

Results: There was a meaningful increase in VEGF gene expression in the case group. There was not a meaningful difference in gene expression in male or female in case or control groups (P>0.05).

Conclusion: The results showed that VEGF gene expression in patients was increased compared to control.