Expression Analysis Of Transcription Factor GLI3 In Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Using Real-Time PCR

Sonic 3edgehog (S33) cell signaling pathway has critical role in pathogenesis of different tumors.GLI3 gene, as a main target gene of this pathway, is correlated to different aspects of tumorigenesisin a varity of cancers. Our aim in this study was to analyze GLI3 gene expression in esophagealsquamus cell carcinoma (ESCC) and to evaluate its correlation with clinicopathological factors. GLI3gene expression analysis was performed on 49 tumors and their corresponded normal tissues ofESCC patients. After RNA extraction and cDNA synthesis, gene expression was analyzed usingrelative comparative Real-time PCR. GLI3 was over expressed in 8.2% of tumor samples while itsunder expression was detected in 4.1%. There was a significant inverse correlation between GLI3gene expression and tumor cell metastasis into the lymph nodes; so that in lymph node metastatictumor samples GLI3 expression was decreased while in tumor samples without lymph nodemetastasis the gene expression was increased. According to the role of S33 cell signaling pathwayin tumorigenesis process of different cancers; expression of GLI3, as one of its target genes, in ESCCmay confirm activation of this pathway in ESCC. Since GLI3 gene expression was inverselycorrelated to the lymph node metastasis of tumor cells, it may be introduced as a prognostic factorfor ESCC metastasis.