Tumor Biology

, Volume 35, Issue 3, pp 1775–1783 | Cite as

Expression of APC, β-catenin and E-cadherin in Tunisian patients with gastric adenocarcinoma: clinical significance

  • Dorra Ben Ayed-Guerfali
  • Basma Hassairi
  • Abdelmajid Khabir
  • Tahia Sellami-Boudawara
  • Ali Gargouri
  • Raja Mokdad-Gargouri
Research Article
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:

Abstract

Aberrant activation of the Wnt signalling pathway is a key feature of many cancers. β-Catenin, adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) and E-cadherin are major players in this pathway. The aim of this study is to examine the expression of β-catenin, APC and E-cadherin in tumour tissues of 80 Tunisian patients with gastric carcinoma and to determine the methylation status of the APC promoter in tumour tissues. Associations between protein expression and clinico-pathological parameters, including prognosis, were performed. Positive expression of β-catenin, APC and E-cadherin was observed in 77.5, 68.7 and 60 % of cases, respectively. Tumours lacking membranous expression of β-catenin had greater extent of lymph node metastasis, poor differentiation and advanced T-stage. The expression of E-cadherin correlated with poor differentiation (P = 0.05) and β-catenin expression (P = 0.004). With regards to prognosis, the overall survival time was significantly prolonged for patients showing normal β-catenin expression (exclusively or predominantly membranous staining) alone or combined with positive APC expression (P log rank = 0.008 and 0.003, respectively). The methylated pattern of APC promoter 1A was detected in 43.8 % of cases and correlated with T-stage (P = 0.046) and distant metastasis (P = 0.037). No correlation was found between the methylated profile of APC promoter 1A and the expression of APC protein in tumour tissues. Our findings suggest that deregulation of the Wnt pathway via abnormal expression of β-catenin and E-cadherin occurred frequently in gastric carcinoma and correlated with worse clinical behaviour.

Keywords

Wnt signalling pathway APC β-Catenin E-cadherin Gastric cancer 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. The authors would like to thank the technicians from the Department of Anatomo-pathology of CHU Habib Bourguiba for the technical assistance in IHC.

Conflicts of interest

None

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Copyright information

© International Society of Oncology and BioMarkers (ISOBM) 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  • Dorra Ben Ayed-Guerfali
    • 1
  • Basma Hassairi
    • 1
  • Abdelmajid Khabir
    • 2
  • Tahia Sellami-Boudawara
    • 2
  • Ali Gargouri
    • 1
  • Raja Mokdad-Gargouri
    • 1
  1. 1.Center of Biotechnology of SfaxUniversity of SfaxSfaxTunisia
  2. 2.Department of Anatomo-pathologyHabib Bourguiba HospitalSfaxTunisia

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