Objective:To investigate the expression of TLR2 and TLR4 in pancreatic cancer and the clinicopathological significance.
Methods:The mRNA of TLR2 and TLR4 in 30 cases of pancreatic cancer and its adjacent tissues were detected with real-time PCR, and the protein of TLR2 and TLR4 in 65 cases of pancreatic cancer and 38 cases of adjacent tissues were detected with immunohistochemieal methods, and the relationship between TLR2 or TLR4 and clinico pathological features of pancreatic cancer were analyzed．Kaplan-Meier method was used to assess the impact of TLR2 or TLR4 expression on survival.
Results:The relative quantification of TLR2 mRNA and TLR4 mRNA in pancreatic cancer tissues was 0.84±0.17 and 0.81±0.10 respectively, which was significantly higher than that in adjacent tissues（0.70±0.13 and 0.70±0.16 respectively，P＜0.05), and protein expression of TLR2 and TLR4 in pancreatic cancer tissues was 63.10% and 69.2% respectively,which was significantly higher than that in adjacent tissues(34.2% and 39.5% respectively，P＜0.05).There was no significant correlation between the expression of TLR2 or TLR4 mRNA or protein with the age，gender，tumor location or the degree of differentiation in patients with pancreatic cancer(P>0．05)．However，there was significant correlation between the expression of TLR2 or TLR4 mRNA or protein with tumor size, lymph node metastasis,venous invasion and clinical staging （P＜0.05）. The mean survival of patients with negative TLR2 or TLR4 expression in tumor tissue was 18.4 and 19.7 months respectively,which was significantly longer than those with TLR2 or TLR4 positive expression（12.4 months，P＜0.05）.
Conclusions:TLR2 and TLR4 overexpressed in pancreatic cancer, and TLRs signaling pathway may promote development of pancreatic cancer．