Expression and significance of Snail and E-radherin in renal clear cell carcinoma

Objective To study the expression of transcriptional factor Snail and adhesion factor E-cadherin in renal clear cell carcinoma (RCCC) and evaluate their correlation with pathological grading,clinical stage,invasion and metastases of RCCC.Methods The expression of Snail and E-cadherin proteins was detected by using immunohistochemical streptavidin-peroxidase method in 69 cases of RCCC tissue,58 cases of the para-cancerous mucosa and 10 cases of normal renal tissue.Results The positive rate of Snail in RCCC was 82.7％,which was significantly higher than that in para-cancerous mucosa (43.1％,P ＜0.01 ).The positive rate of E-cadherin in RCCC was 31.9％,which was significantly lower than that in para-cancerous mucosa (91.5％,P ＜0.01 ).The expression of E-cadherin and Snail was significantly related with the differential degrees,clinical stage,depth of tumor invasion and distant metastasis ( P ＜ 0.05 ).There was a negative correlation between the expression of E-cadherin and Snail in RCCC.Conclusion The over-expression of Snail and decreased expression of E-cadherin might be important biological markers for invasion and metastasis of RCCC.The combined detection of E-cadherin and Snail has fas-reaching significance on predicting the invasion and metastasis of RCCC. Key words: Renal cell carcinoma;  Snail;  Cadherin