Multi-protein Analysis Of The Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Progression

[OBJECTIVE] The development of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is a multistage process which progresses from the normal squamous epithelia to intraepithelial neopiasia, i.e. dysplasia (DYS) and carcinoma in situ (CIS), invasive lesion, and, finally metastasis to lymph nodes or other organs. In the current study, we are interested in investigating the protein expression in human ESCC, its precursor lesions and ESCC cell lines, and characterizing the association of these proteins with ESCC malignant progression.[METHODS] (1) We have constructed a tissue microarray containing 205 ESCC of a variety of pTNM stages and 173 adjacent esophageal intraepithelial neopiasia lesions of all histologic grades as well as corresponding normal controls in order to perform a ESCC progression model. The protein products of 11 genes encompassing a variety of functional classes, such as protein of tumor suppressor gene (mutant p53), apoptosis proteins (Fas, FADD, caspase 8), cell cycle antigen (CDC25B), cytoskelecton and relative proteins (fascin, CK14, CK4), cell signaling protein (annexin 1), extracellular matrix protein (laminin-5γ2) and matricellular protein (SPARC), differentially expressed in ESCC by previous routine immunohistochemical analysis (mutant p53) or by recent global microarray expression analysis on mRNA level (others), were analyzed by immunohistochemistry on the tissue microarray. We compared the expression of these proteins in normal epithelia/mucosa, DYS, CIS, and ESCC. We also analyzed the differences of protein expression in ESCC with different clinicopathological characters, including invasive depth, node involvement, pTNM stage and differentiated grade, etc. (2) We detected the expression of fascin, CK14, laminin-5γ2 in cell lines (EC9706, TE12, COLO-680N, KYSE510, KYSE450,...