Expression and clinical significance of Twist, E-cadherin and N-cadherin in bladder carcinoma by tissue microarray

Abstract

Objective To investigate the expression of Twist,E-cadherin and N-cadherin in bladder urothelial carcinoma and evaluate their relationships with tumor.Methods From January 1998 to June 2007,the expression of Twist,E-cadherin and N-cadherin protein were detected in 180 bladder urothelial carcinoma tissue specimens in paraffin blocks and 60 normal bladder tissue specimens by tissue microarray and immunohistochemistry.Results Compared with normal hladder tissues,the expression of Twist and N-cadherin was up-regulated in bladder carcinoma tissues and the positive percentage was 63.9％ and 47.8％ respectively.The percentage of high E-cadherin expression in bladder carcinoma tissues was only 27.8％,which was significantly lower than that in normal bladder tissues.The expression of Twist was significantly related with age,tumor number,vessel invasion,distant metastasis and lymph node metastasis (P＜0.05).The expression of E-cadherin was significantly related with distant metastasis and lymph node metastasis (P＜ 0.05).The expression of N-cadherin was significantly related with distant metastasis and lymphnode metastasis (P＜0.05).There was significant positive correlation between Twist and E-cadherin expression (P＜ 0.05).There was significant positive correlation between Twist anl N-cadherin expression (P＜0.05).There was negative correlation between E-cadherin and N-cadherin expression.All the 180 bladder carcinoma patients were followed up after the surgery,and the mean follow-up time was (35.2±9.1) months.The 5-year survival rates of patients with low and high Twist expressions were 67.7％ and 46.1％ respectively,and there was significant difference between the two groups (P＜0.05).The multivariate analysis indicated that the Twist expression was an independent prognostic factor of bladder carcinoma.Conclusions The high expression of Twist,E-cadherin and N-cadherin are involved in the processes of invasion and metastasis of bladder urothelial carcinoma.The Twist expression was one of the independent prognostic factors of bladder urothelial carcinoma. Key words: Twist protein; E-cadherin protein; N-cadherin protein; Bladder urothelial carcinoma; Tissue microarray