The establishment of the duplex real-time RT-PCR assay for the detection of CD44v6 in pancreatic cancer patients and clinical application.

Cell adhesion molecule CD44v6 has been found to be associated with the progression and metastasis of numerous cancers. In this study, a novel duplex real-time quantitative reverse-transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) assay was developed to quantitatively detect the CD44v6 gene expression in pancreatic cancer patients. The primers and probes of CD44v6 and beta-actin genes were designed and standard curve of the duplex qRT-PCR was constructed by optimizing the reaction conditions. The specificity and reproducibility of this assay were satisfactory and the detection limit was 100 copies, which was 10 times more sensitive than the conventional RT-PCR assay. This assay was also used to detect the expression levels of CD44v6 messenger RNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cell in 37 pancreatic cancer patients and 12 healthy people. The results showed that 37 clinical samples were tested positive by the duplex qRT-PCR compared with only 30 by the conventional RT-PCR. The levels of CD44v6 expression showed significant correlation with sex, tumor size, tumor differentiation, clinical stage, lymph node, and liver metastasis (P < 0.05). Compared with the control group, CD44v6 levels in patients prior and 10 days post cryosurgery were significantly increased (P < 0.05) but had no significant change in those 1 month post cryosurgery (P > 0.05). The duplex qRT-PCR assay may provide a useful tool for the evaluation of prognosis and curative effect of pancreatic cancer.