Referenced in: none

Automatically associated channels: ClC4 , Kir2.1 , Kir3.1

Title: G-protein inwardly rectifying potassium channel 1 (GIRK 1) gene expression correlates with tumor progression in non-small cell lung cancer.

Authors: Iwao Takanami, Yoshimasa Inoue, Masatoshi Gika

Journal, date & volume: BMC Cancer, 2004 Nov 13 , 4, 79

PubMed link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15541182

Abstract
G-protein inwardly rectifying potassium channel 1 (GIRK1) is thought to play a role in cell proliferation in cancer, and GIRK1 gene expression level may define a more aggressive phenotype. We detected GIRK1 expression in tissue specimens from patients with non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs) and assessed their clinical characteristics.Using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analyses, we quantified the expression of GIRK1 in 72 patients with NSCLCs to investigate the relationship between GIRK1 expression and clinicopathologic factors and prognosis.In 72 NSCLC patients, 50 (69%) samples were evaluated as having high GIRK1 gene expression, and 22 (31%) were evaluated as having low GIRK1 gene expression. GIRK1 gene expression was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis, stage (p = 0.0194 for lymph node metastasis; p = 0.0207 for stage). The overall and stage I survival rates for patients with high GIRK1 gene expressed tumors was significantly worse than for those individuals whose tumors had low GIRK1 expression (p = 0.0004 for the overall group; p = 0.0376 for stage I).These data indicate that GIRK1 may contribute to tumor progression and GIRK1 gene expression can serve as a useful prognostic marker in the overall and stage I NSCLCs.