ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the relationship between chromobox protein homolog 7 (cbx7) expression and the occurrence and development of colorectal carcinoma (CRC), gastric carcinoma (GC) and hepatocarcinoma (HCC) tissues.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The samples of neoplastic tissues and the corresponding cutting-edge normal tissues from 22 cases of CRC, 20 cases of GC, 30 cases of HCC were surgically collected. Level of cbx7 mRNA was detected with a fluorescent quantitative RT-PCR assay, and the correlationship among expression of cbx7 mRNA, the patients' clinicopathologic features and the surviving time after surgery was analyzed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The relative copy number of cbx7 mRNA in carcinomas and the normal tissues was 0.010 ± 0.015 vs 0.053 ± 0.042 for CRCs, 0.197 ± 0.195 vs 1.891 ± 1.254 for GCs, and 0.008 ± 0.008 vs 0.030 ± 0.021 for HCCs, respectively. Compared with the corresponding normal tissues, cbx7 expression was significantly downregulated in CRCs, GCs, and HCCs (t = -7.351, -5.417 and -6.680, respectively, P < 0.01). The expression of cbx7 mRNA in CRCs had significant differences not only between two age groups (the relative copy number of cbx7 mRNA in age > 55 group was 0.007 ± 0.015, but 0.017 ± 0.012 in age ≤ 55 group, t = -2.586, P = 0.022); but also between vascular embolus-positive and negative groups (the level of cbx7 mRNA in positive and negative group was 0.022 ± 0.021 vs 0.006 ± 0.011, t = -3.175, P = 0.010). The area under the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve is 0.769 (P = 0.033). when the Cut-off value of the relative copy number of cbx7 mRNA was 0.002 in CRCs. The values less-than 0.002 were defined as low expression. The CRC patients with low expression of cbx7 had a shorter overall survival time; whose 5 years survival rate was only 30.8% (4/13); while the rate was 77.8% (7/9) in high expression of cbx7 group. The difference had statistical significance (χ(2) = 4.329, P = 0.037). The similar differences could not be found among GC and HCC patients.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Downregulation of cbx7 expression was very common among multiple carcinomas cases, and the downregulation influenced the prognosis of CRC patients.</p>