Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Methionyl-tRNA Synthetase 1 (MARS1) is a critical enzyme in translation initiation, responsible for catalyzing transfer of Met to the initiator tRNA. In this study, we aimed to examine whether MARS1 expression is different between normal cells and cancer cells in thyroid tissue and if it can supplement the limitations of general cell staining methods currently performed for diagnosis of cancer.

Methods: Initially, 103 patients were included in this study to compare MARS1 expression of cancer cells and normal cells. Next, 100 patients were selected to compare MARS1 expression using immunohistochemical analysis in patients with and without lateral neck metastasis. Lateral neck metastasis was found in 50% of the patients.

Results: The average MARS1 expression of cancer cells was 2.59 and that of normal cells was 1.28. MARS1 expression of the two groups showed statistically significant differences (p =0.000). There was a significant difference in the average MARS1 expression grade of cancer cells between the metastasis and non-metastasis groups (p <0.05). In addition, a significant difference was observed in the average MARS1 expression grade between the lymph node of metastasis group and the cancer cells of non-metastasis group (p <0.05).

Conclusions: In this study, we found that MARS1 could be used as a complementary method to the current fine needle aspiration biopsy tissue staining method. Additionally, MARS1 could be a predictor of the prognosis of papillary thyroid carcinoma.