Preparation of polyclonal antibody specific for NOR1 and detection of its expression pattern in human tissues and nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Oxidored-nitro domain containing protein 1 (NOR1) gene is a novel nitroreductase gene first isolated from nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). It plays an important role in the formation of chemical carcinogen and the carcinogenesis of NPC for its nitrosation function. Overexpression of the wild-type NOR1 gene in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells is effective to inhibit cell growth and proliferation. In this study, for the first time, we generated a highly specific NOR1 antibody and analyzed NOR1 distribution in the human tissues and NPC biopsies. The results showed that NOR1 protein is predominantly expressed in human nasopharynx and tracheal tissues. Human heart, liver, spleen, stomach, colon, kidney, skeletal muscle, thymus, and pancreas are all deficient of NOR1 protein. More importantly, we performed immunohistochemistry assay of NOR1 protein expression in the NPC tissues, and the result showed that NOR1 protein is frequently down-expressed in NPC. These data shed light on the selectivity of potential physiological functions of NOR1 and provides an indispensable reference to the carcinogenesis process of NPC and to identify or validate tissue-specific drug targets.