Clinicopathological significance of PTEN and PI3K/AKT signal transduction pathway in non-small cell lung cancer.

A high frequency of mutations at the PTEN locus has been noticed in carcinoma of lung. However, the role of PTEN alternations and its association with outcome variables in the genesis of lung carcinoma are not understood fully. The purpose of our study was to examine the impact of EGFR, TGF-α, P-AKT and PTEN in the genesis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Total numbers of 66 histopathologically confirmed cases of NSCLC and 10 cases of benign control samples embedded with wax were studied. We assessed EGFR, TGF-α and P-AKT by the use of specific antibody through immunohistochemistry as directed by the manufacturer, and detected PTEN expression by in situ hybridization. There were progressive loss of PTEN expression and significant increasing in EGFR, TGF-α, P-AKT expression from benign samples to NSCLC (p<0.05). The overexpression of EGFR, TGF-α, P-AKT and loss of PTEN expression were correlated to differentiation extent of cancer tissue, metastasis of lymph nodes and histological classification. Thus, alteration of EGFR, TGF-α, P-AKT and PTEN are likely important molecular events in pathogenesis and carcinogenesis of NSCLC.