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Updated: Sep 28, 2026
An Immunofluorescent Method for Characterization of Barrett’s Esophagus Cells
Published on: July 20, 2014
[Expression and significance of beta-catenin in esophageal carcinoma]
Xiao-bo Zhou1, Ning Lu, Wei Zhang
1Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology, Cancer Institute & Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100021, P. R. China.
Background & Objective:
Many reports have characterized the aberrant expression of beta-catenin in diverse types of human cancer. To determine whether beta-catenin has possible roles in esophageal carcinogensis, we designed this study to detect the expression pattern of beta-catenin in normal esophageal epithelium and esophageal cancer tissue, then to study the relevance of its expression and localization to tumor differetiation degree and lymph node metastasis.
Methods:
By using immunohistochemical staining(SP method), the expression of beta-catenin was detected in 22 normal esophageal tissue slides and 52 esophageal carcinomas.
Results:
In the 22 normal esophageal tissue, beta-catenin showed high intense expression at the membrane and low intense expression at the cytoplasm. In contrast to the normal tissue, beta-catenin was expressed in the cytoplasma in carcinoma with varied degrees, accompanied by less, or even lost expression at the membrane in cancer samples. In some cases, beta-catenin could be detected in the nucleus. Moreover, the positive rate of beta-catenin expression in cytoplasm was significantly higher in those patients with lymph node metastasis than patients without(P < 0.05).
Conclusions:
The aberrant expression of beta-catenin occurred frequently in the esophageal carcinoma, mainly including the translocation of beta-catenin protein from membrane to the cytoplasm and nucleus, and the accumulation of beta-catenin in cytoplasma was overt. And the aberrant expression of beta-catenin protein was statistically correlated to the lymph node metastasis in esophageal cancer.
