Expression of CDX2 and Villin in Gastric Cardiac Intestinal Metaplasia and the Relation with Gastric Cardiac Carcinogenesis

Objective: To determine whether CDX2 and villin protein expression are associated with intestinal metaplasia(IM) in gastric cardiac mucosa and to explore the relationship with evolution of gastric cardiac adenocarcinoma(GCA).
Methods: We studied 143 gastric cardiac biopsy or resection specimens from Henan province China,including 25 cardiac gastritis specimens with IM, 65 dysplasia specimens with IM and 35 gastric cardiacadenocarcinoma specimens and stained them for CDX2 and villin by the immunohistochemical SP method.15 normal gastric cardiac biopsy specimens were also collected as control.
Results: (1) Normal gastric mucosapresented no CDX2 and villin expression. The positive rates of CDX2 protein in cardiac gastritis with IM,dysplasia with IM, and carcinoma tissues were 84.0% (21/25), 66.7% (32/48) and 36.4% (20/55), respectively.While the positive rates of villin protein in cardiac gastritis with IM, dysplasia with IM, and carcinoma tissueswere 76.0% (19/25), 70.8% (34/48) and 45.5% (25/55), respectively.There were significant differences among thethree groups for both CDX2 and villin (P<0.01). Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient(rho) showed a closecorrelation between the two proteins (r=0.843, P<0.01) and both were positively related with tumor differentiation(both P<0.05), but not associated with age, sex, invasion and metastasis of lymph node (P>0.05).
Conclusion: Ourresults suggest that ectopic expression of CDX2 and villin may be involved in early-stage IM and tumorigenesisin gastric cardia and the expression of villin may be regulated by CDX2.