Role of MDM2-p53 signaling pathway in the development of colorectal cancer

Objective To investigate the mechanism of MDM2-p53 signaling pathway in the development of colorectal cancer and correlation between p53 with clinicopathological parameters, so as to further analyze the effect of p53 on prognosis. Methods The colorectal cancer tissues and the adjacent normal tissues from 86 cases of patients with colorectal cancer were collected. The expression of p53 and murine double minute 2(MDM2) in colorectal cancer and adjacent normal tissues were detected by immunohistochemistry, Western Blot and real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The prognosis of the patients was analyzed by the Kaplan-Meier survival curves. Results The protein expression and the mRNA expression of p53 and MDM2 in colorectal cancer tissues were significantly higher than that in the adjacent non-cancerous tissues (all P<0.01). A positive correlation was observed between the expression of p53 and MDM2 (r=0.785). The expression of p53 in colorectal cancer tissues were correlated well with the degree of tumor differentiation, TNM stage, lymph node metastasis and infiltration depth (all P<0.05). Survival analysis demonstrated that the mean overall survival time in p53 high expression group was (53.92±1.56) months which was significantly lower than that in p53 low expression group of (69.16±3.72) months, and the difference was statistically significant (χ2=14.78, P<0.01). Conclusions The risk and prognosis of colorectal cancer are closely related to the MDM2-p53 signaling pathway. p53 can be used as a potential target for the prognosis and treatment of colorectal cancer. Key words: Colorectal cancer; p53; Murine double minute 2; Clinicopathological features; Signaling pathway; Prognosis