High level of ezrin expression in colorectal cancer tissues is closely related to tumor malignancy.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the ezrin expression in normal colorectal mucosa and colorectal cancer tissues, and study the correlation between ezrin expression in colorectal cancer tissues and tumor invasion and metastasis.


METHODS
Eighty paraffin-embedded cancer tissue samples were selected from primary colorectal adenocarcinoma. Twenty-eight patients had well-differentiated, 22 had moderately differentiated and 30 had poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma. Forty-five patients and 35 patients had lymph node metastasis. Forty-five patients were of Dukes A to B stage, and 35 were of C to D stage. Another 22 paraffin-embedded tissue blocks of normal colorectal epithelium (> 5 cm away from the edge of the tumor) were selected as the control group. All patients with colorectal cancer were treated surgically and diagnosed histologically, without preoperative chemotherapy or radiotherapy. The immunohistochemistry was used to detect the ezrin expression in paraffin-embedded normal colorectal mucosa tissues and colorectal cancer tissue samples.


RESULTS
Ezrin expression in colorectal cancer was significantly higher than in normal colorectal mucosa (75.00% vs 9.09%, P < 0.01), and there was a close relationship between ezrin expression and the degree of tumor differentiation, lymph node metastasis and Dukes stage (88.46% vs 50.00%, P < 0.01; 94.28% vs 51.11%, P < 0.01; 94.28% vs 51.11%, P < 0.01).


CONCLUSIONS
Ezrin expression is obviously higher in colorectal cancer tissues than in normal colorectal mucosa tissues, and the high level of ezrin expression is closely related to the colorectal cancer invasion and metastasis process.
Wang
Hong-Jian
HJ
Department of Gastroenterology, The Sixth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
Zhu
Jin-Shui
JS
Zhang
Qiang
Q
Sun
Qun
Q
Guo
Hua
H
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000818:Animals; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D003598:Cytoskeletal Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007413:Intestinal Mucosa / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness / Q000473:pathology*; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D000099149:Ezrin
D003598:Cytoskeletal Proteins; D000099149:Ezrin