Wu H, Lotan R, Menter D, Lippman S M, Xu X C
Department of Clinical Cancer Prevention, U.T. M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston 77030, USA.
Anticancer Res. 2000 May-Jun;20(3A):1385-90.
E-cadherin is a cell surface molecule that mediates cell-cell adhesion in normal epithelium. Disabled or aberrant E-cadherin expression increases cell motility and promotes the transition of well-differentiated adenoma to invasive carcinoma. To evaluate whether E-cadherin could serve as a biomarker of squamous cell differentiation, we analyzed its expression by immunohistochemistry in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections of 7 head and neck cancer patients, 19 lung cancer patients, 73 esophageal cancer patients, 19 skin cancer patients, and 18 cervical cancer patients. E-cadherin was expressed at very high levels (93%-100%) in adjacent or distant normal squamous epithelia. Likewise, most (75-100%) well-differentiated squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) also expressed E-cadherin. In contrast, poorly differentiated SCCs expressed less than 40% of E-cadherin. Furthermore, immunohistochemical analysis showed that the differentiation-inducing agent, all-trans retinoic acid, can up-regulate E-cadherin expression in esophageal SCC cells in vitro. Our data demonstrated that E-cadherin expression is associated with SCC differentiation and that may serve as a squamous cell differentiation marker.
E-钙黏蛋白是一种细胞表面分子，在正常上皮组织中介导细胞间黏附。E-钙黏蛋白表达缺失或异常会增加细胞运动性，并促进高分化腺瘤向浸润性癌的转变。为了评估E-钙黏蛋白是否可作为鳞状细胞分化的生物标志物，我们采用免疫组织化学方法分析了7例头颈癌患者、19例肺癌患者、73例食管癌患者、19例皮肤癌患者和18例宫颈癌患者的福尔马林固定石蜡包埋组织切片中E-钙黏蛋白的表达情况。E-钙黏蛋白在相邻或远处的正常鳞状上皮中呈高水平表达（93%-100%）。同样，大多数（75%-100%）高分化鳞状细胞癌（SCC）也表达E-钙黏蛋白。相比之下，低分化SCC中E-钙黏蛋白的表达低于40%。此外，免疫组织化学分析表明，分化诱导剂全反式维甲酸可在体外上调食管SCC细胞中E-钙黏蛋白的表达。我们的数据表明，E-钙黏蛋白的表达与SCC分化相关，可能作为鳞状细胞分化标志物。
