Background/aims: 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.
Methodology: 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.