Affiliations: Department of Pathology, The First Hospital of Hebei
Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China | Clinical College, Hebei Medical University,
Shijiazhuang, China | Central Laboratory, The First Hospital of Hebei
Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China | Department of Oncology, Institute of Clinical and
Experimental Medicine, University of Linköping, Linköping, Sweden
Note: [] Corresponding author: Xiao-Feng Sun, Prof. M.D, Ph.D.,
Department of Oncology, Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine,
University of Linköping, S-581 85 Linköping, Sweden. Tel.: +46 13
222066; Fax: +46 13 223090; E-mail: xiasu@ibk.liu.se
Abstract: Particularly interesting new cysteine-histidine rich protein
(PINCH), as a newly discovered protein of LIM family members, may play a role
in signal transduction of integrin and growth factor, and involved in the
incidence and development of tumors. PINCH protein is overexpressed in
tumor-associated stroma of several types of tumors. However, there is no study
of the PINCH in esophageal cancer, therefore we investigated PINCH expression
in esophageal squamous cell carcinomas and its clinicopathological significance
in the patients. PINCH expression was immunohistochemically examined in 20
normal esophageal samples and 64 esophageal squamous cell carcinomas. The
results showed that PINCH expression in the stroma of cancers was
heterogeneous, and its positive rate (56%) was higher than that of normal
esophageal mucosa (5%, p < 0.0001). The stronger staining was observed
at the invasive edge of tumor when compared to the inner area of tumor. The
rate of positive PINCH (90%) in the cases with lymph node metastasis was
higher than that (41%) in the cases without metastasis (p < 0.0001).
PINCH expression was not correlated with patients' gender, age, tumor location,
size and differentiation (p > 0.05). The results suggest that PINCH protein
may be a marker of tumor associated-stroma involving tumor development, and
predicting the ability of invasion and metastasis of esophageal squamous cell
carcinoma.
