Deletion of the E-cadherin gene in hepatitis B... : Hepatology (original) (raw)

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Deletion of the E-cadherin gene in hepatitis B virus-positive chinese hepatocellular carcinomas

Slagle, Betty L. Ph.D.*, 1; Zhou, Yi-Zhong2; Birchmeier, Walter3; Scorsone, Kathleen A.1

1_Division of Molecular Virology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030_

2_Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry, Shanghai 200031, China_

3_Institut für Zellbiologie (Tumorforschung), D-4300 Essen 1, Germany_

*Address reprint requests to: Division of Molecular Virology, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, TX 77030

Received January 05, 1993; accepted April 30, 1993; previously published online December 05, 2005

Abstract

Frequent allele loss from chromosome 16q was recently described for human tumors of the breast, prostate gland and liver, indicating the possible presence of a tumor-suppressor gene on that chromosome arm. In this study, the chromosome 16 allele status of 38 hepatocellular carcinomas in Chinese patients was determined with restriction-fragmentlength polymorphism analysis. Tumor-specific allele loss was detected in 14(74%) of 19 patients informative for 16p markers and in 22 (85%) of 26 patients informative for 16p markers. Quantitative densitometric analysis revealed reduction to hemizygosity of the E-cadherin cell adhesion gene (localized to 16q22.1) in 18 (64%) of the 28 patients for whom quantitative data were available. Reduced expression of E-cadherin has been associated with invasion and metastasis in several human cell lines and primary tumors, and our results suggest that one mechanism of reduced E-cadherin expression is the loss of one copy of the E-cadherin gene. (HEPATOLOGY 1993;18:757-762).