Abstract: OBJECTIVE: To investigate expression of heparanase (HPA),epithelial marker E-cadherin, interstitial marker N-cadherin and vimentin protein in human gastric cancers and their relationship with clinical-pathological indicators of human gastric cancer. METHODS: Expressions of HPA, E-cadherin, N-cadherin and vimentin proteins in 91 cases of human gastric cancers were detected by immunohistochemical methods. The relationships between the positive expression rates of these proteins and different pathological indicators of human gastric cancer were detected using chi-square test. Furthermore,the relationships between HPA and E-cadherin,HPA and N-cadherin,vimentin protein were analyzed using Spearman rank correlation. RESULTS: The positive expression rates of HPA,E-cadherin,N-cadherin and vimentin proteins in human gastric cancer tissues were 75.82%, 51.65%, 54.95% and 23.08%, respectively. Positive expression rates of HPA, E-cadherin,N-cadherin and vimentin proteins in 91 cases of human gastric cancer tissues related to the age,sex,and size of gastric cancer patients (P > 0.05),but were related to the location and degree of differentiation of human gastric cancer. It was related to the degree of lymph node metastasis and invasion (P < 0.05). Positive expression rates of HPA,N-cadherin and vimentin proteins in the gastric cardia were significantly higher than those in the gastric body,pyloric and antral gastric cancers. Poorly differentiated,lymph node metastatic and invasive gastric cancer were significantly higher than those in well differentiated,non-lymph node metastatic and initial gastric cancer. Positive expression rates of E-cadherin protein in pyloric and antral gastric cancer were significantly higher than those in cardiac and gastric body gastric cancers. Patients with high school differentiation and without lymph node metastasis were significantly higher than those with low differentiation and lymph node metastasis. Positive expression rates of E-cadherin protein in the depth of invasion were significantly lower than that in the initial site. The Spearman grade correlation analyses show that the positive expression rates of HPA were negatively correlated with that of E-cadherin protein in human gastric cancer tissues (r=0.341,P < 0.05),but positively correlated with the positive expression rates of N-cadherin (r=0.366, P < 0.05) and vimentin (r=0.284,P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: In human gastric cancers,the positive expression rates of HPA,N-cadherin and vimentin proteins were high in poorly differentiated,lymph node metastasis and invasive depth of gastric cancer,while the positive expressions of E-cadherin proteins were high in moderately differentiated gastric cancers, non-lymph node metastasis and initial sites. There was a positive correlation between HPA and N-cadherin proteins,and a positive correlation between HPA and vimentin proteins,and a negative correlation between HPA and E-cadherin protein expression. It can be seen that HPA protein was related to the increased expression of stromal marker N-cadherin and vimentin protein, and to the loss or decrease of epithelial marker E-cadherin protein, therefore HPA may induce epithelial-mesenchymal transformation in human gastric cancer tissue.

Key words: heparanase, gastric cancer, immunohistochemical staining, epithelial-mesenchymal transformation