Expression Of Target GS Protein In Wnt Pathway Signaling, E-cadherin And β-catenin In Hepato-cellular Carcinoma And Its Clinical Significances

Background:Hepatocellular carcinoma is the fifth cancer worldwide, with1million people contracted this disease each year and its death rate in cancer is third. Our country is high prevalence area for hepatocellular carcinoma and each year nearly110thousand people died of this disease, which accounts for45%year death amount of hepatocellular carcinoma around the world. There is no specific symptom for this disease, most of which are complicated with hepatic cirrhosis. So the diagnosis is made usually at late stage and easily relapse and metastasis after the treatment. The main treatment consists of surgery、radiotherapy%chemotherapy、biotherapy and so on, but the general efficacy is not so good. Besides the factor of treatment, the biological characters of hepatocellular carcinoma per se are important to influence the prognosis. Currently there is no very effective method to predict the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma.Cellular signal pathway is one of the most forward and active subject in current biomedical area. Wnt signal pathway is composed of a series of proteins coded by onco-genes and anti-oncogenes and between these various proteins there are relations and mutual restriction. The impertinent activation of Wnt signal pathway participates the occurrence of several diseases. Research has discovered that the development and progression of more than90%colorectal carcinoma、hepatocellular carcinoma、oesphageal cancer etc of gastrointestinal tumors has the abnormal activation of Wnt signal pathway and changes of components in the pathway. But there are rare studies for the clinicopathological relation between the Wnt signal pathway and hepatocellular carcinoma and its prognosis. In the present research, we will apply the immunohistochemistry to detect the expressions of target GS protein in Wnt signal pathway, E-cadherin and β-catenin in hepatocellular carcinoma, to study the relationship between the expressions and biological characters of hepatocellular carcinoma and to explore the effects of the expressions on the prognosis.Objective:To explore the expressions of GS protein、E-cadherin and β-catenin in hepatocellular carcinoma and to study the relationship between their expressions and hepatocellular carcinoma and to explore their effects on the patients’prognosis.Methods:(1) To collect182cases of hepatocellular carcinoma with complete information and of which,92cases of tumor-adjacent tissues from January2001to December2011in lishui city’s central hospital of Zhejiang province, all of them were performed with radical resection.(2) Tissue microarray and immunohistochemical study (EnVision method) for GS,E-cadherin and β-catenin was performed on tissue microarrsy which consisted of182cases of hepatocellular carcinoma and92cases of tumor- adjacent tissues.All the specimens were examined immunohistochemically and divided into positive group and negative group according to the proportion and staining intensity of GS in related hepatic cells. As to the E-cadherin and β-catenin, they are grouped with abnormal expression group and normal ones. Two sample rate was compared by X2test of matched fourfold tables; and multiple samples rate was examined by X2test with X line’s information; the correlation between the data was analyzed with spearman rank correlation analysis. And P<0.05has the statistical significance.Results:(1) The positive rate of GS in hepatocellular carcinoma is77.5%, was much higher than in tumor-adjacent tissue (4.3%), and is significant (P<0.05); the abnormal rate of expression of E-cadherin and β-catenin was59.3%and58.8%, and higher than either (30.4%and26.1%) with significant result (P<0.05).(2) The expression of GS in hepatocellular carcinoma is significantly correlated with TNM stage、metastasis and postoperative recurrence (P<0.05); so are the E-cadherin and β-catenin, including with the vascular tumor embolus. The expression of GS was correlation with the abnormal ones of E-cadherin and β-catenin in hepatocellular carcinoma.Conclusions:(1) The high expression of GS and abnormal expression of E-cadherin and P-catenin in hepatocellular carcinoma may be one of the important mechanisms to promote the invasion and metastasis of hepatocellular.(2) Detection of GS、E-cadherin and β-catenin could be helpful to judge the degree of malignancy, potential metastasis and its prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma.