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Updated: Jul 8, 2026

An Immunofluorescent Method for Characterization of Barrett’s Esophagus Cells
Published on: July 20, 2014
LI-cadherin: a marker of gastric metaplasia and neoplasia
C Grötzinger1, J Kneifel, D Patschan
1Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Hepatology and Gastroenterology, Charité Medical School of the Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Background:
Intestinal metaplasia is considered a risk factor for the development of gastric adenocarcinomas of the intestinal type and is found in approximately 20% of gastric biopsies. Conventional histology only detects advanced stages of intestinal metaplasia.
Aims:
To study expression of the enterocyte specific adhesion molecule liver-intestinal (LI)-cadherin in intestinal metaplasia as well as in gastric cancer, and to evaluate its use as a diagnostic marker molecule.
Patients:
Gastric biopsies (n=77) from 30 consecutive patients (n=30; aged 28-90 years) as well as surgically resected tissue samples (n=24) of all types of gastric carcinomas were analysed.
Methods:
Single and double label immunofluorescence detection on cryosections of gastric biopsies; alkaline phosphatase antialkaline phosphatase method on paraffin embedded carcinoma tissue sections.
Results:
Of 77 biopsies (from 30 patients), 12 (from 10 patients) stained positive for LI-cadherin. LI-cadherin staining correlated with the presence of intestinal metaplasia. Conventional histological diagnosis however failed to detect subtle gastric intestinal metaplasia (three of 10 patients). In contrast, only LI-cadherin and villin were positive in these cases whereas sucrase-isomaltase also failed to detect intestinal metaplasia in four of 10 patients. Well differentiated gastric carcinomas showed intense staining for LI-cadherin while undifferentiated carcinomas showed only weak diffuse cytoplasmic staining.
Conclusions:
To detect early metaplastic changes in the gastric mucosa, LI-cadherin has a sensitivity superior to sucrase-isomaltase and conventional histology and comparable with that of villin. Its specificity exceeds that of villin. Thus LI-cadherin represents a new, reliable, and powerful marker molecule for early detection of gastric intestinal metaplasia and well differentiated adenocarcinomas.
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