Detection in situ of E-cadherin, β -catenin, TCF4 and CDX2 in various gastric diseases

Objective To investigate the expressions of E-cadherin, β -catenin, transcription factor 4 (TCF4), which are related with Wnt/ β -catenin signaling pathway, and Caudal-type Homeobox Protein 2 (CDX2) originated from intestine, in various gastric diseases and its influence on gastric carcinogenesis and differentiation. Methods A total of 319 various gastric diseases samples from gastroscopy were detected in situ using immunohistochemistry, and data were analyzed with χ 2 test and Kendall’s tau-b rank correlation coefficient analysis. Results Along with the progression from superficial gastritis (SG) to atrophic gastritis (AG) to gastric cancer (GC), the expressions of E-cadherin and β -catenin appeared a decreasing tendency in total, while β -catenin emerged a decreasing tendency in the cell membrane and an increasing in the nucleus, and the highly positive expression rate of intranuclear transcription factor TCF4 appeared an increasing tendency. The transcription factor CDX2 had a higher expression in AG and GC than that in SG. The expression rates of the four proteins above in intestinal type adenocarcinoma were all higher than those in diffuse type carcinoma. There were positive correlations between E-cadherin and β -catenin expressed in cytoplasm, between β -catenin expressed in cell membrane and β -catenin in cytoplasm, between β -catenin expressed in cytoplasm and β -catenin in nucleus, between β -catenin and TCF4 in nucleus, between TCF4 and CDX2 in nucleus, respectively ( P <0.05). And β -catenin and CDX2 had no relevance in nucleus ( P >0.05). Conclusion We found that the four proteins were involved in gastric carcinogenesis and the differentiation to intestinal type adenocarcinoma.