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Gene in the Colonic Polyps and Colonic Mucosa of Acromegalic Patients
Departments of Endocrinology and Metabolism (F.B., F.U., F.R., D.R., S.B., C.C., M.G., E.M.) and Oncology (P.V., D.C., A.C.), University of Pisa, 56124 Pisa, Italy; Division of Endocrinology (L.B.), University of Insubria, 21100 Varese, Italy
Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Dr. Fausto Bogazzi, Dipartimento di Endocrinologia e Metabolismo, Università di Pisa, Ospedale di Cisanello, Via Paradisa 2, 56124 Pisa, Italy. E-mail: f.bogazzi@endoc.med.unipi.it or fbogazzi{at}hotmail.com.
| Abstract |
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(PPAR
) levels, the latter acting as a tumor suppressor gene. In this study we evaluated the expression of PPAR
in the biopsy samples of the polyps and outside polyps colonic mucosa from seven patients with active, untreated acromegaly, 11 with cured disease, and 15 controls. Serum GH and IGF-I levels were higher in patients with untreated acromegaly than in those with acromegaly in remission or controls (P = 0.003 and P = 0.002, respectively) The expression of PPAR
mRNA (mean ± SE) was 1) mucosa outside polyps, 24,188 ± 3,254 transcripts in the controls, 22,432 ± 2,006 transcripts in acromegaly in remission, and 1,952 ± 342 transcripts in untreated acromegaly (P < 0.0001 vs. controls and acromegaly in remission); and 2) polyps mucosa, 1,554 ± 236 transcripts in the controls, 1,112 ± 143 in acromegaly in remission, and 1,570 ± 251 in untreated acromegaly (P = NS among polyps groups and mucosa outside polyps of untreated acromegaly; P < 0.0001 vs. mucosa outside polyps of controls and acromegaly in remission). Eighty-five percent of the cells in the mucosa outside polyps from controls or acromegaly in remission were positive at immunohistochemistry, at variance with 45% of the cells from polyps mucosa from each group and from those of mucosa outside polyps of untreated acromegaly (P = 0.0002). In conclusion, patients with untreated acromegaly have reduced expression of PPAR
in the mucosa outside polyps, which might be reversed by curing the disease; conversely, patients with acromegaly in remission have the same low levels of expression of PPAR
in the polyps mucosa as untreated acromegaly or controls, supporting the concept that reduced expression of PPAR
might be an early event in colonic tumorigenesis. | Introduction |
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(PPAR
) is a ligand-dependent transcription factor belonging to the nuclear receptor superfamily (1); it is highly expressed in adipose tissue, where it plays a key role in the regulation of adipocyte differentiation and fat metabolism (2, 3) and in colonic mucosa, where it exerts important functions in the differentiation process (4, 5, 6). A growing body of evidence indicates that PPAR
is a functional receptor for the thiazolidinedione class of antidiabetic drugs and may function as a tumor suppressor gene (7, 8): a fusion of PPAR
to PAX8 was reported in thyroid papillary carcinomas (9); and PPAR
activation by troglitazone induces differentiation of liposarcoma (10), prostate cancer (11), or several transformed cells, the growth of which is inhibited (4, 12).
PPAR
levels in the colonic mucosa are similar to those found in adipose tissue, and increased expression is found during differentiation of colonic epithelial cells (13, 14). Activation of PPAR
in cultured colon cancer cells induces growth inhibition and increases markers of cellular differentiation (4). Furthermore, PPAR
activation decreases premalignant intestinal lesions in rats treated with azoxymethane (15). On the other hand, activation of PPAR
in C57BL/6J-APCMin/+ mice promotes the development of colonic tumors (14, 16). These discrepant reports are due to the fact that PPAR
may act as a tumor suppressor gene only in the presence of an intact adenomatous polyposis coli gene (APC), which is disrupted in C57BL/6J-APCMin/+ mice (17). In humans, somatic mutations in one allele of the PPAR
gene associated with a loss of function of the receptor were found in 4 of 55 patients with primary colorectal cancer, being localized exclusively in exons 5 and 3, which encode for the ligand binding domain and the DNA binding domain, respectively (18). On the other hand, others failed to detect mutations of the PPAR
gene in a large series of tumor samples and cell lines (19).
We recently observed that patients with active acromegaly have reduced expression of PPAR
in the colonic mucosa, which is related to the increased serum IGF-I levels (20). This reduced PPAR
expression might have the same role of loss of function mutations, contributing to colonic tumor development. In fact, heterozygous loss of PPAR
was associated with an increased sensitivity to chemical carcinogenesis (17).
The aim of the present study was to evaluate the levels of expression of PPAR
in the colonic polyps and the mucosa outside polyps of patients with acromegaly.
| Patients and Methods |
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The study, which was approved by the institutional review committee, included the following groups of subjects: 18 consecutive patients with acromegaly referred to our institution in the years 20002002, including: group A, 7 acromegalic patients (4 men and 3 women; mean ± SD age, 49 ± 11 yr) with active, untreated acromegaly; group B, 11 patients (5 men and 6 women; mean age, 53 ± 7 yr) with acromegaly in remission after pituitary adenomectomy; and group C, 15 nonacromegalic patients investigated because of colonic polyps (9 men and 6 women; mean age, 52 ± 9 yr; controls). Four patients of the latter group had a positive family history for colorectal neoplasia, whereas no acromegalic patient had colonic cancer or a positive family history for colonic neoplasia. Patients were selected among consecutive acromegalic or nonacromegalic patients based on the presence of colonic polyps; all gave their informed consent. The diagnosis of acromegaly was based on clinical and laboratory features, including an increase in serum IGF-I levels and the lack of suppression of serum GH levels below 2 µg/liter after a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test (Table 1
). Acromegaly was caused by a pituitary GH-secreting microadenoma in 6 cases (33%) and by a macroadenoma in 12 cases (67%).
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Colonoscopy examination was performed using a CFQ14SL apparatus (Olympus, New Hyde Park, NY) by the same operator (A.C.). Polyps and extrapolyps mucosa samples were recovered during colonoscopy and immediately processed; part of the sample was formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded, and part was placed in liquid nitrogen until further examination.
RNA extraction
Total RNA was prepared using an RNA-DNA mini-kit (QIAGEN, Milan, Italy) according to the manufacturers instructions. Total RNA was resuspended in diethylpyrocarbonate-treated water and quantitated by spectrophotometry.
RT-PCR and sequencing analysis
One microgram of human colonic epithelial total RNA obtained from acromegalic patients or controls was reverse transcribed in 50 mM Tris-HCl (pH 8.3), 75 mM KCl, 3 mM MgCl2, 10 mM dithiothreitol, 200 µM each of deoxy-NTP, 10 mM oligo(deoxythymidine) primer, 20 U RNasin (Promega Corp., Madison, WI), and 200 U Moloney murine leukemia virus reverse transcriptase in a final volume of 20 µl. The reaction was terminated by heating at 95 C for 5 min. Five microliters of the reaction were then amplified in a final volume of 25 µl in 1x PCR buffer (TaqMan Universal PCR Master Mix, PE Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA), 300 mM of each primer, and 200 nM of fluoresceinate probe for 40 cycles as previously reported (20). The primers and probe were previously reported (20). The primer set amplifies an 83-bp fragment, the identity of which was confirmed by DNA sequencing. A control in which RT was omitted before PCR amplification was always included to eliminate the possibility that any amplification was due to contaminating genomic DNA. Each experiment was performed in triplicate; data are expressed as the number of copies of PPAR
.
Immunohistochemistry
Five-micrometer sections were deparaffined with xylene and rehydrated by ethanol treatment. Sections were pretreated with 1% hydrogen peroxide in methanol for 10 min at room temperature to inactivate endogenous peroxide activity. To unmask the antigens, slides were microwaved in 10 mM citrate buffer, pH 6, for 10 min. Nonspecific binding sites within the sections were blocked by incubating the sections with 1.5% normal donkey serum and 5% nonfat dry milk. Sections were incubated with the 1:50 diluted primary antibody (rabbit polyclonal antibody anti-PPAR
, H-100, Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Santa Cruz, CA) at 4 C for 12 h and then with the 1:500 diluted biotin-labeled secondary antibody at room temperature for 30 min, followed by incubation with avidin-biotin complex (Vector Laboratories, Inc., Burlingame, CA) for an additional 30 min. The resultant immune peroxidase activity was developed in 0.5% 3,3'-diaminobenzidine tetrahydrochloride (Sigma-Aldrich Corp., St Louis, MO). Sections were counterstained with hematoxylin, dehydrated, and mounted. Negative controls were obtained by omitting the anti-PPAR
-specific primary antibodies, which were replaced by rabbit immunoglobulins that did not react with PPAR
. The extent of PPAR
positivity was calculated as the number of positive cells, expressed as a percentage of the total number of cells. An average of 200 cells in each sample were counted.
Assays
Serum GH and IGF-I (Nichols Institute Diagnostics, San Juan Capistrano, CA) were determined using commercial kits. Normal values in our laboratory are as follows: GH, 05 µg/liter; and IGF-I, 182780 µg/liter (1624 yr), 90492 µg/liter (2550 yr), and 71290 µg/liter (>50 yr).
Statistics
The results of serum GH and IGF-I measurements were expressed as the mean ± SD, and those of PPAR
were expressed as the mean ± SE. Comparison of parameters among the study groups was performed with ANOVA. The relationship between the levels of expression of PPAR
and serum GH or IGF-I levels was evaluated by linear regression.
| Results |
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PPAR
expression was measured in either polyps mucosa or mucosa outside polyps in each group. Nonacromegalic subjects had 24,190 ± 3,250 copies of PPAR
in the mucosa outside polyps; patients with untreated acromegaly had 1,950 ± 340 copies of PPAR
(P < 0.0001); patients with acromegaly in remission had 21,430 ± 2,006 copies of PPAR
(P < 0.0001 vs. untreated acromegaly; P = NS vs. controls). The expression of PPAR
in the polyps mucosa was greatly reduced in untreated acromegaly (1,570 ± 251), acromegaly in remission (1,112 ± 143), and controls (1,554 ± 236; P < 0.0001 vs. mucosa outside polyps of controls and acromegaly in remission; P = NS vs. mucosa outside polyps from untreated acromegaly; Fig. 1
). A significant inverse correlation was found between the levels of expression of PPAR
and serum GH or IGF-I levels in the mucosa outside polyps (r = 0.57; P < 0.002 and r = 0.55; P < 0.003, respectively), but not in polyps.
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was analyzed in the same specimen using immunohistochemistry. As shown in Fig. 2
protein was intensively expressed in the colonic mucosa outside polyps from the controls, which showed 85% positive nuclei (Fig. 2A
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| Discussion |
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Recently, we reported an interaction between IGF-I and PPAR
in the colonic epithelium of acromegalic patients, suggesting a possible link between IGF-I action and the induction of polyps, as indicated by the fact that patients with active, untreated acromegaly had lower levels of PPAR
expression than those with cured disease (20).
Genetic studies (18, 19) showed either the presence or absence of somatic loss of function mutations in the gene encoding PPAR
in patients with colonic cancer. A recent study reported that PPAR
is a tumor suppressor gene in the colon, and that loss of one allele of this gene causes an increased sensitivity to chemical carcinogenesis (17).
Activation of PPAR
in colonic cancer cells induces growth arrest and morphological changes consistent with differentiation (25). The role of PPAR
as a tumor suppressor gene might be related either to the increased expression of genes that regulate the adhesive interaction between microvilli or to the down-regulation of genes that stimulate intestinal epithelial proliferation (25). In mice, PPAR
decreases colonic tumors by down-regulating the ß-catenin gene in the presence of a normal APC gene (17).
Thus, disruption of the PPAR
gene or loss of function mutations might contribute to tumorigenesis in the colon and other tissues (18, 26, 27, 28). The results of the present study extend our previous data that showed a down-regulation of PPAR
gene expression in active, untreated acromegaly (20). More importantly, the present study, albeit cross-sectional, suggests that when acromegaly is cured, down-regulation of PPAR
might be reversed in the mucosa outside polyps, but not in the polyps. Thus, it is likely that a sustained reduced expression of PPAR
may represent an early event in the formation of colonic polyps in acromegalic patients. The observation that polyps from control patients, with normal GH and IGF-I levels and normal PPAR
expression in the mucosa outside polyps, also show a reduced PPAR
level of expression suggests that reduced PPAR
expression may contribute to the development of polyps outside acromegaly. However, the diffuse reduced PPAR
expression in the colonic mucosa of acromegalic patients may play a relevant role in colonic tumorigenesis of acromegaly.
| Footnotes |
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Abbreviations: APC, Adenomatous polyposis coli; PPAR, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor
.
Received February 19, 2003.
Accepted April 29, 2003.
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