Expression of Cdx2 and claudin-2 in the multistage tissue of gastric carcinogenesis

In this paper, we investigated Cdx2 and claudin-2 expression in pathological paraffin tissues of sinus ventriculi from gastroscopic biopsy to determine the correlation between the expressions of these 2 genes during gastric carcinogenesis by immunochemical ABC technique. Altogether, we analyzed 108 chronic superficial gastritis, 55 chronic atrophic gastritis, 109 intestinal-type metaplasia, 93 dysplasia and 52 gastric intestinal-type adenocarcinoma samples. Our results indicated that the percentage of Cdx2-positive cases was 0% (0/108) for chronic superficial gastritis, 0% (0/55) for chronic atrophic gastritis, 90.83% (99/109) for intestinal-type metaplasia, 51.61% (48/93) for dysplasia and 61.54% (32/52) for gastric intestinal-type adenocarcinoma, primarily expressed in the cell nucleus and partly in the cytoplasm (p < 0.05); interestingly, the percentage for the intestine-type metaplasia was markedly high. The percentage of claudin-2-positive cases was 0% (0/108) for chronic superficial gastritis, 0% (0/55) for chronic atrophic gastritis, 0% (0/109) for intestinal-type metaplasia, 35.48% (33/93) for dysplasia and 71.15% (37/52) for gastric intestinal-type adenocarcinoma, primarily in the cell membrane and gradually increased in the multistage process of gastric carcinogenesis (p < 0.05). Significant correlations were found between claudin-2 and Cdx2 protein expression in dysplasia and intestine-type adenocarcinoma (r = 0.112, p < 0.05). Thus, there may be a correlation between the expression of claudin-2 and Cdx2 in stages of dysplasia and cancer.