Objective To explore the expression of forkhead box protein 3 (FOXP3) in gastric cancer cells,and its relationship with clinicpathological characteristics and prognosis of gastric cancer patients.Methods The expression profile of FOXP3 in 111 gastric adenocarcinoma tissues and 20 normal gastric mucosa were detected with immunohistochemistry,statistical analysis combined with clinical data of patients with gastric cancer.Results Positive staining of FOXP3 was mainly located in the nucleus of gastric adenocarcinoma cells with the positive rate of 42.3％ (47/112).In the normal gastric tissue,the positive rate of FOXP3 was 0％ (0/20).There were significant difference (x2 =13.207,P ＜0.05) when comparison was made between gastric adenocarcinoma and normal gastric tissue groups.Comparison of FOXP3 positive rate between gastric adenocarcinoma patients and its histological subtype (tumor size,depth of invasion,and clinical stage) showed significant difference (P ＜0.05),but (sex,age,and staging of tumor node metastasis (TNM),lympho node metastasis and differentiation) showed no significant difference (P ＞ 0.05).In the survival analysis,there was no significance in survival rate between the FOXP3 positive group and FOXP3 negative group either (P ＞ 0.05).Conclusions The FOXP3 were expressed in the human gastric cancer specimens.To a certain extent,FOXP3 was involved in the development of gastric adenocarcinoma and related to the degree of malignancy,but is not related to the prognosis of gastric cancer.

AIM:ToinvestigatetheexpressionofFoxp3+regulatoryTcells(Foxp3+Tregs)andprogrammed death receptor 1 (PD1) in gastric cancer tissues and their association with clinicopathological factors and prognosis of the patients.The correlation between the 2 molecules was also analyzed at the same time.METHODS: The tumor sections from 111 gastric cancer patients were stained for Foxp3 and PD1 by the method of immunohistochemistry.The associations of the expression levels of these 2 molecules with clinicopathological factors involved in the disease progression and progno-sis were statistically analyzed .The relationship of their expression was detected.RESULTS:Foxp3 +Tregs and PD1 were expressed in the gastric cancer tissues, and PD1 was expressed in the tumor infiltrating lymphocytes ( TILs) .The expres-sion of Foxp3 and PD1 was correlated with lymph node metastasis, clinicopathological stage and prognosis of gastric cancer patients.The expression of these 2 determinants in the patients with lymph node metastasis and an advanced clinicopatho-logical stage was distinctly higher ( P<0.05 ) .The patients with positive expression of the 2 indexes presented a lower overall survival rate and worse prognosis (P<0.05).A significantly positive correlation between the infiltration of Foxp3 +Tregs and the expression of PD1+TILs was also observed (P<0.01).CONCLUSION:Foxp3 +Tregs and PD1 +TILs co-infiltrate in the gastric cancer tissues, which can be used as biological markers to predict the disease progression and prog-nosis.