Correlation of E-cadherin expression and recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma

BACKGROUND/AIMS: We performed this study to clarify the relationship betwee n E-cadherin expression and recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma. METHODOLOGY: Forty-five surgically resected specimens of hepatocellular car cinoma were collected. The patients included 35 men and 10 women. The ages were between 30 and 77 years, with a mean age of 54 years. Western blotting and/or immunohistochemical staining of the tumor and non-tumor tissues for detection of E-cadherin were performed. Reverse transcription-polymerase c hain reaction to check the levels of mRNA. for E-cadherin and nucleotide se quencing of putative calcium binding domains were done if the tumor tissues showed negative E-cadherin expression. RESULTS: Three (6.7%) tumor tissues were negative for E-cadherin with both Western blotting and immunohistochemical staining. Of the 3, two showed dec reased mRNA in tumor tissues while the other 10 randomly selected samples d id not show this phenomenon. No mutation of nucleotide sequence in the puta tive calcium binding domains was found. Two of the 3 patients had invasive cancers by histological studies while 13 out of the other 42 E-cadherin pos itive cases showed invasive cancers. CONCLUSIONS: E-cadherin underexpression might have some contribution to the early recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma. Transcriptional or post-tran scriptional down-regulation may be the mechanism of underexpression of E-ca dherin in hepatocellular carcinoma.