Expression of β-catenin and E- and N-cadherin in human brainstem gliomas and clinicopathological correlations

Abstract

Brainstem gliomas are usually associated with serious dysfunction and poor prognosis especially for diffuse intrinsic brainstem gliomas; however, the reasons are still unclear. Some clinical studies have suggested that the invasive ability may be different among brainstem gliomas, and the dysfunction of β-catenin and E- and N-cadherin appears to be connected with tumor invasion and progression. In this study, the expression of β-catenin and E- and N-cadherin was detected in 40 brainstem glioma samples using immunochemistry and was further analyzed in 18 samples using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. The clinicopathological characteristics were also analyzed. The results show that there was no obvious staining for E-cadherin, but weak expression at the messenger RNA (mRNA) level could be seen in a few samples. The protein and mRNA expression levels of β-catenin and N-cadherin were significantly associated with the pathological grades of brainstem gliomas. No significant differences in the expression levels of β-catenin and N-cadherin were observed for age, sex, location or diffuse growing pattern. The overall survival of patients with low β-catenin expression was longer than that with high β-catenin expression, and there was a trend toward increased expression of N-cadherin with shorter survival; however, both of them had no statistical differences. These results demonstrate that expression of β-catenin and N-cadherin is associated with the malignant progression of brainstem gliomas but not correlated with the diffuse and invasive growing pattern. β-catenin and N-cadherin are potential therapeutic targets and prognostic markers for brainstem glioma, which need to be validated in a larger patient cohort.

Transcription Regulation of E-Cadherin by Zinc Finger E-Box Binding Homeobox Proteins in Solid Tumors

“…Although E-cadherin suppression is observed in the brain cancer tissues, the functions of E-cadherin in the tumor cells remain to be verified as another cadherin member, and N-cadherin seems to plays a more significant role in brain cancer aggressiveness. Low E-cadherin expression is found in most of the glioblastoma tissues and is associated with the differentiation status of the glioblastoma [56, 57]. In comparison with the tumor tissues, E-cadherin expression is rare in the glioblastoma cell lines [58, 59].…”

A preliminary quantitative proteomic analysis of glioblastoma pseudoprogression

“…A previous study on brainstem glioma showed that higher expression of CDH2 predicts the progression of malignant tumors and tends to predict a shorter survival time of patients [ 31 ]. Other studies also indicated CDH2 may be functionally correlated with tumorigenesis in glioma cells and involved in mediating glioma cell migration [ 32 - 34 ].…”

CDH2 expression is of prognostic significance in glioma and predicts the efficacy of temozolomide therapy in patients with glioblasotma

“…Cadherin 2 (CDH2), which encodes the N-cadherin protein, is also a marker of EMT. An increasing amount of evidence has suggested that CDH2 has a close association with the WHO grade of glioma (10). By contrast, a previous study demonstrated that GBMs express lower CDH2 levels than low-grade gliomas (11).…”