Expression Of Snail And E-cadherin In Bladder Urothelial Carcinoma And Correlation Between Snail And Subsets Of T Lymphocyte

ObjectiveBladder cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors in the urinary system. The most common bladder cancer histological subtype is that of bladder urothelial carcinomas. The two major features of bladder urothelial carcinomas are invasion and metastasis, which are important causes of death of patients with cancer. So elucidating the molecular mechanism of invasion and metastasis, searching new interventional targets, which are significant to offer new aspects for comprehensive therapies of bladder urothelial carcinoma. Snail is Zinc Finger transcription factor. It can enhance invasion and metastasis of tumor through not only inhibiting the expression of E-cadherin but also induction of immunosuppression. The objective of this study was to investigate the expression of Snail and E-cadherin in bladder urothelial carcinoma, and to evaluate the correlation between Snail expression and subsets of T lymphocyte.Methods56 patients, who were diagnosed as bladder urothelial carcinoma and treated by operation between February 2003 and March 2009 at the Department of Urology of ShengJing Hospital affiliated to China Medical University, all have been confirmed by pathological examination. All patients have not received radiotherapy and chemotherapy before operation.20 tumor-adjacent tissues were used as control group. The expression of Snail and E-cadherin was detected by streptavidin-peroxidase immunohistochemical method in the paraffin embedded sections with the clinical data analyzed. Meanwhile, immunohistochemical method was used to measure the amount of CD4 and CD8 T lymphocytes in 56 cases of bladder urothelial carcinoma tissue. All data were processed by SPSS 13.0 for windows. ResultsThe positive rate of Snail in bladder urothelial carcinoma was 82.1% (46/56), which was significantly higher than that in para-cancerous mucosa 45% (9/20) (P< 0.05). The expression of Snail was significantly related with the differential clinical stage, pathological degree, tumor quantity, distant metastasis and tumor recurrence (P< 0.05), but no gender and age.The positive rate of E-cadherin in bladder urothelial carcinoma was 28.6%(16/56), which was significantly lower than that in para-cancerous mucosa 80%(16/20) (P< 0.05). The expression of E-cadherin was significantly related with the differential clinical stage, pathological degree, tumor quantity and distant metastasis (P<0.05), but no gender, age and recurrence.There was negative correlation between expression of Snail and E-cadherin in bladder urothelial carcinoma. There was negative correlation between expression of Snail and amount of CD4T cells and CD4/CD8T cells value, whereas there was no significant correlation between expression of Snail and amount of CD8T cells.Conclusion1. The high expression of Snail and low expression of E-cadherin in bladder urothelial carcinoma are involved in the processes of invasion and metastasis of bladder urothelial carcinoma. Snail may accelerate the invasion and metastasis of bladder urothelial carcinoma through depressing E-cadherin expression.2. Snail could induce the immunosuppression effect in the local tumor, which can accelerates cancer invasion, metastasis and recurrence.3. Snail might be important biological markers for recurrence of bladder urothelial carcinoma. Strong staining intensity of Snail indicates poor prognosis of bladder urothelial carcinoma.