The application of Tau protein testing to gastric cancer patients treated with paclitaxel

Paclitaxel is one of the main drugs used to treat gastric cancer, but many tumors develop drug resistance, resulting in treatment failure. The levels of expression of Tau protein in breast tumors have been found to be related to paclitaxel resistance, suggesting that Tau protein expression may predict breast cancer sensitivity to paclitaxel treatment. To determine whether Tau protein expression can predict gastric cancer sensitivity to paclitaxel, we assayed Tau protein expression levels in gastric cancer specimens from 70 patients. We observed Tau protein expression in 54 of 70 (77.1%) specimens. Assays in gastric cancer cell lines showed that Tau protein expression was significantly lower in BGC823 than in MKN45 cells (P = 0.0147). MTT assays showed that different concentrations of paclitaxel inhibited the growth of MKN45 and BGC823 cells, but inhibition and apoptosis were more obvious in cells expressing low levels of Tau protein. Paclitaxel chemotherapy was effective in 34 of the 70 patients (48.6%) and was significantly correlated with low expression of Tau protein (P < 0.01). These findings indicate that Tau protein is expressed in a high percentage of gastric cancers, with paclitaxel being more effective in tumors with low Tau expression.