Decreased fragile histidine triad expression in colorectal cancer and its association with apoptosis inhibition

Figure 1 Frequency of intragenic deletions in FHIT transcripts in human CRC. Gel photo of FHIT RT-PCR products showing that the full length FHIT was the predominant transcript in samples 1-3, 5, 7 and 9. Both full length FHIT and shorter fragments representing transcripts containing deletions in FHIT could be seen in samples 4, 6 and 7. The arrow shows the gel position of splice variants.

Figure 2 Sequencing analysis of aberrant FHIT transcripts. A: Deletion of exons 4-6 in the FHIT gene; B: Deletion of exons 4-8 in the FHIT gene.

Figure 3 TMA-IHC assay showing significantly decreased FHIT expression in normal colonic mucosal samples (A), CRC tissue samples (B), and magnified views of the respective samples A and B (C and D).

Figure 4 Relationships between FHIT expression and CRC differentiation grade (A) and stage (B), and survival rate (C) CRC patients.

Figure 5 TUNEL assay showing significantly decreased apoptosis in FHIT-negative CRC cells (A), FHIT-positive CRC cells (C), and magnified views of the respective samples A and C (B and D).

Figure 6 Decreased FHIT expression and apoptosis inhibition in human CRC. Reduced apoptosis index was detected in the same number of cells per field in CRC with FHIT-negative expression.

Figure 7 TMA-IHC showing significantly decreased Bax expression in FHIT positive CRC tissue samples (A), FHIT-negative CRC tissue samples (C), and magnified views of the respective samples A and C (B and D).

Figure 8 TMA-IHC showing significantly increased Bcl-2 expression FHIT positive CRC tissue samples (A), FHIT-negative CRC tissue samples (C), and magnified views of the respective samples A and C (B and D).

Figure 9 TMA-IHC showing significantly increased survivin expression in FHIT- positive CRC tissue samples (A), FHIT-negative CRC tissue samples (C), and magnified views of the respective samples A and C (B and D).

Figure 10 Tree-view of differential protein expression data from 80 CRC tissue samples. Tree-view demonstrated the FHIT protein expression related to Bax, Bcl-2 and survivin protein expression. Red indicates up-regulation, green indicates down-regulation, and yellow indicates no significant change.