Endometrial cancer is one of the most common
malignancies in the female genital tract. Programmed cell death 5 (PDCD5) is a newly identified apoptosis related gene and plays an important role in the development of some human
tumors. However, the expression and clinical significance of PDCD5 in
endometrial cancer have not been fully elucidated. Here, we evaluated the expression of PDCD5 in endometrioid
endometrial carcinoma and control endometrium by qRT-PCR, western blot and immunohistochemistry, and analyzed the associations of PDCD5 expression with clinicopathological parameters of patients. In addition, we detected the expression of PDCD5 in control endometrial glandular epithelial cells and endometrioid
endometrial carcinoma-derived cell line KLE by immunocytochemistry. The results showed that PDCD5
protein mainly expressed in the cytoplasm of glandular epithelial cells and
endometrial carcinoma cells, and there was a low level of PDCD5 expression in the nuclei of the above cells. Furthermore, PDCD5
protein level was significantly lower in
endometrial carcinoma samples than that in control endometrium. The decreased PDCD5 expression was correlated with the
tumor differentiation degree. It is clear that PDCD5
protein expression was lower in middle and low differentiated
endometrial carcinoma compared with control endometrium and high differentiated
endometrial carcinoma. However, there were no significant differences of PDCD5 expression between the proliferative phase and the secretory phase of control endometrium, as well as between high differentiated
endometrial carcinoma and controls. The results were verified in control glandular epithelial cells and KLE cells by immunocytochemistry. Therefore, PDCD5 may play a key role in the pathogenesis of
endometrial cancer and may be a novel target for diagnosis and treatment of
endometrial cancer.