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E‐cadherin loss rather than β‐catenin alterations is a common feature of poorly differentiated thyroid carcinomas
Author(s) -
Rocha A S,
Soares P,
Fonseca E,
CameselleTeijeiro J,
Oliveira M C,
SobrinhoSimões M
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
histopathology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.626
H-Index - 124
eISSN - 1365-2559
pISSN - 0309-0167
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2559.2003.01642.x
Subject(s) - cadherin , pathology , catenin , feature (linguistics) , thyroid , cancer research , medicine , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , genetics , wnt signaling pathway , signal transduction , cell , linguistics , philosophy
Aims: To investigate the immunohistochemical and molecular genetic features of the cadherins/catenins complex in thyroid carcinoma based on the hypothesis that poorly differentiated carcinoma of the thyroid represents an intermediate step between well‐differentiated and undifferentiated carcinomas. Methods and results: Immunohistochemistry for E‐, P‐ and N‐cadherins and α‐, β‐ and γ‐catenins was performed in a series of 17 cases of poorly differentiated carcinoma of the thyroid. All cases showed absence of membranous expression of E‐cadherin with no aberrant expression of P‐ or N‐cadherins; regarding catenins there was heterogeneous loss of expression with membranous immunolocalization of the three catenins in most cases. Molecular analysis of the E‐cadherin gene and exon 3 of the β‐catenin gene was also performed by polymerase chain reaction/single‐strand conformation polymorphism and sequencing. No mutations in either gene were detected in any case. Conclusions: In contrast to previous reports, our results suggest that loss of E‐cadherin rather than β‐catenin mutation is the crucial event in determining the differentiation ‘level’ of thyroid carcinomas.