Abstract:

Background and purpose: SERPINA3 is a protease inhibitor, belonging to the serpin super family. It has been reported that SERPINA3 expression up-regulated in various tumor cells. However, its clinical significance and biological function in endometrial cancer remains unclear. This study was aimed to investigate the effect and prognosis value of up-regulated SERPINA3 (α1-ACT) in endometrial cancer. Methods: ①We collected 20 pairs of endometrial carcinoma and normal endometrial tissues then extracted total RNA, detected SERPINA3 mRNA expression by quantitative real-time PCR; ②Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of SERPINA3 in tissue chip which contained 81 endometrial cancer tissue samples and 37 normal controls endometrial tissues, based on the results, using SPSS software to analyze the relationship between SERPINA3 expression with clinicopathological features of endometrial cancer;③The highest SERPINA3 expression was selected from 5 endometrial cancer cells, then small interfering RNA targeted interference SERPINA3 gene expression; ④With real-time quantitative PCR and Western blot methods, we detected SERPINA3 gene expression in mRNA and protein levels after interference, at last, analyzed cell motility by cell migration assay. Results: ①SERPINA3 mRNA expression in endometrial carcinoma was significantly higher than the control endometrial tissue (n=20, P<0.05); ②Immunohistochemistry also showed SERPINA3 expression in endometrial carcinoma higher than in normal endometrial tissues (P<0.001). The analysis showed that between the expression level of SERPINA3 with endometrial cancer clinical stage, tumor differentiation, vascular invasion, lymph node metastasis, there was a close correlation (P<0.05); ③Interference expression of SERPINA3, endometrial cancer cells migration was significantly reduced. Conclusion: SERPINA3 gene expression in endometrial carcinoma was significantly increased and correlated with endometrial cancer invasion and metastasis; SERPINA3 is expected to become the pathological marker of diagnosis and determination in the prognosis of endometrial cancer. It may be used as one of the biological target of endometrial cancer targeted therapy.

Key words: SERPINA3, Endometrial cancer, Tissue microarrayer, Small interfering RNA interference, Migration