Oncogenic role of the Wilms' tumor gene in tumorigenesis of lung cancer

我们已经证明野生型Wilms‘s瘤基因(WT1)在白血病母细胞和各种实体瘤细胞系中都有高水平的表达，并且WT1反义寡聚体可以抑制这些细胞的生长。在本课题中，我们用实时定量RT-PCR方法检测了20例肺癌患者新鲜肺癌组织和匹配的正常肺组织中WT1基因的表达。我们发现WT1基因在大多数肺癌组织中都有表达。肺癌组织中WT1的表达水平是正常肺组织的10-3000倍。此外，我们还鉴定了WT1基因产物是一种新的白血病肿瘤抗原。这些结果提示WT1在肺癌的发生发展中起致癌作用，WT1蛋白有可能作为肿瘤特异性免疫的靶蛋白。

We have previously demonstrated that wild-type Wilms' tumor gene (WT1) is expressed at high levels in both leukemic blast cells and various types of solid tumor cell lines and the growth of these cells was inhibited by the treatment with WT1 antisense oligomers. In the present project, we examined WT1 gene expression in fresh lung cancer tissues and in matched normal lung tissues from 20 patients with lung cancer (14 with adenocaricinoma, 6 with squamous-cell carcinoma) by Real time RT-PCR method. We demonstrated that the WT1 gene was expressed in most of lung cancer tissues examined. The levels of WT1 expression in lung cancer tissues were 10-3000 times higher than that in normal lung tissues. Furthermore, we identified WT1 gene product as a novel tumor antigen of leukemia. These results suggest that oncogenic role of WT1 in tumorigenesis of lung cancer and the possibility that WT1 protein could serve as a target protein for tumor-specific immunity.