Expression of growth hormone and its receptor in chronic atrophic gastritis and its clinical significance

Validation of diagnostic strategies of autoimmune atrophic gastritis: A case report

BACKGROUND

Autoimmune atrophic gastritis (AAG) is a type of chronic gastritis that mainly affects the gastric corpus. Due to the lack of standard diagnostic criteria and overlaps with the courses of Helicobacter pylori-related atrophic gastritis, reports on the diagnostic strategy of AAG at an early stage are limited.

CASE SUMMARY

A 71-year-old woman with severe anemia was diagnosed with AAG. Endoscopic views and pathological findings showed the coexistence of normal mucosa in the gastric antrum and atrophic mucosa in the gastric fundus. Serological tests showed that anti-parietal cell antibodies and anti-intrinsic factor antibodies were both positive. Immunohistochemical results, which showed negative H⁺-K⁺ ATPase antibody staining and positive chromogranin A (CgA) staining, confirmed the mechanism of this disease. After vitamin B12 and folic acid supplementation, the patient recovered well.

CONCLUSION

Successful diagnosis of AAG includes serological tests, endoscopic characteristics, and immunohistochemistry for H⁺-K⁺ ATPase and CgA antibodies.

GHR is involved in gastric cell growth and apoptosis via PI3K/AKT signalling

Growth hormone receptor (GHR), the cognate receptor of growth hormone (GH), is a membrane bound receptor that belongs to the class I cytokine receptor superfamily. GH binding GHR induces cell differentiation and maturation, initiates the anabolism inside the cells and promotes cell proliferation. Recently, GHR has been reported to be associated with various types of cancer. However, the underlying mechanism of GHR in gastric cancer has not been defined. Our results showed that silence of GHR inhibited the growth of SGC-7901 and MGC-803 cells, and tumour development in mouse xenograft model. Flow cytometry showed that GHR knockout significantly stimulated gastric cancer cell apoptosis and caused G1 cell cycle arrest, which was also verified by Western blot that GHR deficiency induced the protein level of cleaved-PARP, a valuable marker of apoptosis. In addition, GHR deficiency inhibited the activation of PI3K/AKT signalling pathway. On the basis of the results, that GHR regulates gastric cancer cell growth and apoptosis through controlling G1 cell cycle progression via mediating PI3K/AKT signalling pathway. These findings provide a novel understanding for the role of GHR in gastric cancer.

Growth hormone receptor promotes osteosarcoma cell growth and metastases

Osteosarcoma (OS) is the primary bone malignancy in children and adolescents, with a high incidence of lung metastasis and poor prognosis. Here, we report that growth hormone receptor (GHR) is overexpressed in OS samples compared with osteofibrous dysplasia. We subsequently demonstrated that GHR knockdown inhibited colony formation, promoted cell apoptosis and decreased the number of cells at G2/M phase in 143B and U2OS cells. Furthermore, knockdown of GHR inhibited tumor growth in vivo. Together, these findings indicate that GHR modulates cell proliferation and metastasis through the phosphoinositide 3‐kinase/AKT signaling pathway and may be suitable for use as a putative biomarker of OS.

Nuclear magnetic resonance-based metabolomics approach to evaluate preventive and therapeutic effects of Gastrodia elata Blume on chronic atrophic gastritis

Chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG) is one of the most common digestive system diseases worldwide which defined by WHO as initial step of cancer. Gastrodia elata Blume (GEB) is a traditional herbal with multiple pharmacological activities which was widely used in Asian countries. This study aims to explore the preventive and therapeutical effects of Gastrodia elata Blume on auto-immune induced CAG in rats. Tissues of stomachs were collected and submitted to ¹H NMR-based metabolomics analysis and histopathological inspection. The biochemical indexes of MDA, SOD, GSH, NO and XOD were measured. Gastrodia elata Blume could apparently ameliorate the damaged gastric glands and the biochemical parameters, enhance gastric acid secretion, and significantly relieve the inflammation of the stomach. Orthogonal signal correction-partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OSC-PLS-DA) of NMR profiles and correlation network analysis revealed that Gastrodia elata Blume could effectively treat CAG via regulating energy and purine metabolisms, and by anti-oxidation and anti-inflammation effects.

Growth hormone receptor expression in human primary gastric adenocarcinoma

The aim of this study was to determine the expression of growth hormone receptor (GHR) in patients with primary gastric adenocarcinoma. We investigated 48 specimens of primary gastric adenocarcinoma and their corresponding normal gastric mucosa. Immunohistochemistry and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) were used to detect the expression of GHR. Immunohistochemical analyses revealed that GHR was expressed in human primary gastric adenocarcinoma (36/48, 75.0%) and appeared to be upregulated, compared to the normal mucosa (28/48, 58.3%, P < 0.001). A significant correlation was found between GHR expression and tumor stage (P < 0.001) and tumor differentiation (P < 0.001). The average positive rate of ki-67 in GHR-positive tumors was 16.06%, while the positive rate in GHR-negative tumors was 6.17% (P < 0.01). The average apoptosis index (AI) of GHR-positive tumors was 3.36%, which was significantly lower than that (7.33%) of GHR-negative tumors. In addition, 27 of 48 cases of tumors had GHR mRNA expression, while only 17 of all 48 cases of normal mucosa did so. Our results indicate that the frequency of GHR was significantly higher in primary gastric adenocarcinoma than that in normal gastric mucosa. GHR expression was significantly correlated with tumor differentiation and tumor grade. This finding supported a possible role of growth hormone in primary gastric adenocarcinoma pathophysiology.