1998 Volume 44 Issue 1 Pages 1-10
Intercellular adhesion of epithelial tissue is mainly regulated by the E-cadherin (E-CD) molecule.α-Catenin (α-CAT) is an E-CD associated cytoplasmic protein that forms a linkage to the cytoskeleton and regulates E-CD function. To investigate the relationship between the expression of E-CD and α-CAT as well as the expression of both adhesion molecules and histopathological features, we immunohistochemically and biochemically studied E-CD and α-CAT expression in 62 biopsy specimens of primary oral squamous cell carcinoma. Both adhesion molecules were expressed homogeneously with typical membranous staining at cell-cell borders in normal oral epithelium.
The reduction (or loss) of E-CD expression was 38.7%, and that of α-CAT was 71.0% in oral cancers. The expression of α-CAT closely correlated with that of E-CD in many cancers, but the reduction (or loss) of α-CAT expression was greater than that of E-CD expression in some. Regarding histopathological features, the reduction (or loss) of α-CAT expression more closely correlated with cancer differentiation and invasion than did that of ECD expression in human oral squamous cell carcinomas.
These results suggest that both E-CD and α-CAT are important regulators of intercellular adhesion and that α-CAT is also involved in tumor differentiation and invasiveness.
