Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: As far as the role and amount of Transferrin receptor 2 (TFR2), which is the transferrin receptor gene, studies have been conducted, some of which confirming its relationship with gastric adenocarcinoma. The idea behind this study was to examine changes in the TFR2 gene expression in the tumor cells of gastric adenocarcinoma and comparing with gene expression in the normal tissue adjoining the tumor.

Methods: This case-control study was conducted at the Pathology Section of Cancer Institute of Imam Khomeini University Hospital in Tehran from September 2015 to September 2016. In this study, 30 fresh samples from tumor tissues of patients diagnosed with gastric adenocarcinoma, 30 fresh samples of normal tissue adjoining the tumor and 30 samples of frozen plasma from the same patients were taken. The patients' plasma was examined in terms of existence of helicobacter pylori antibody by enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) method and TFR2 gene expression in the tumor tissue and the adjoining normal tissue by applying real-time polymerase chain reaction (Real-Time PCR).

Results: Gene expression (by applying real time polymerase chain reaction) in the tumor tissue was meaningfully higher than in the normal tissue (P= 0.125). The TFR2 expression in patients with stomach cancer, who were at the same time infected with helicobacter pylori, indicated that the gene expression had increased in those with this contamination (P= 0.077). Examining the relationship between this gene expression and the stage of disease showed that the TFR2 gene expression increased significantly in the more advanced stages of the disease (P= 0.396).