Wnt pathway is involved in advanced gastric carcinoma.
OBJECTIVE
The Wnt/beta-catenin signaling pathway is tightly regulated and has important functions in development, tissue homeostasis, and regeneration. Deregulation of Wnt/beta-catenin signaling is frequently found in various human cancers. This study evaluated the relationship between the expression of Wnt-1, beta-catenin and E-cadherin in gastric cancer and gastric cancer clinicopathological characters.


METHODS
The cancerous tissues from 180 gastric cancer patients and the adjacent normal tissues from 30 gastric cancer patients hospitalized in our hospital from Jan 2000 to June 2001 were collected. The immunohistochemical SP method was carried out to detect Wnt-1, beta-catenin and E-cadherin. The pathological stage of gastric cancer was evaluated in hematoxylin-eosin staining by the same pathologist.


RESULTS
In the gastric cancerous tissues, the expression percentage of Wnt-1, beta-catenin and E-cadherin is 54.4%, 45.6%, 47.2%, respectively, which is significantly higher than the percentage expression of these genes in normal tissues (p<0.01). The expression levels of these three genes are significantly related to tumor size, tumor invasive depth, lymph node metastasis, pTNM stage, differentiation and five-year survival rate.


CONCLUSIONS
Wnt-1, beta-catenin and E-cadherin play an important role in the differentiation, progression, invasion and metastasis in gastric cancer; they are good indicators for evaluating the biological behaviors of gastric cancer. And also, they will be promising targets for developing anti-cancer drug in gastric cancer.
Zhang
Hongfeng
H
Abdominal Surgery, No. 3rd Clinical Hospital, Harbin Medical University, Heilongjiang Province, Harbin, PR China.
Xue
Yingwei
Y
D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015820:Cadherins / Q000235:genetics; D018279:Carcinoma, Signet Ring Cell / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000235:genetics; D013270:Stomach / Q000473:pathology; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D051155:Wnt1 Protein / Q000235:genetics*; D051176:beta Catenin / Q000235:genetics
D015820:Cadherins; D051155:Wnt1 Protein; D051176:beta Catenin