RESUMO
Objective To explore the expression of a new candidate tumor suppressor N-myc downstream regulated gene 2 (NDRG2) in bladder cancer tissues and to investigate its clinical and pathological significance.Methods Formalin-fixed,paraffin-embedded tissue sections from 62 cases of bladder carcinomas and 10 cases of normal bladder tissues were analyzed retrospectively with immunohistochemistry (S-P method).Results The NDRG2 gene was highly expressed in normal bladder tissues,but low expressed in bladder carcinoma tissues.Positive expression of NDRG2 was detected in 8 of the 10 (80.0％) normal tissues and 40.3％ in bladder carcinoma ones (x2 =3.98,P ＜0.05).Furthermore,with the degree of malignancy increased,the positive expression of NDRG2 in bladder carcinoma samples was decreased.The expression of NDRG2 in bladder carcinoma was negatively correlated(r =-0.288,P ＜0.05) with C-myc(r =-0.436,P ＜0.01) and positively correlated with p53 in bladder carcinoma tissues(r =0.717,P ＜0.01).Conclusions The level of NDRG2 expression was lower in bladder carcinomas than in normal tissues.NDRG2 may play an important role in bladder carcinogenesis and in the progress of bladder cancers.