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Short Communication |




From the Département de Pathologie*
and Service de
Chirurgie,
Hôpital Henri Mondor -
AP-HP, Créteil; and the Unité de Recombinaison et
Expression Génétique,
Institut
National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U163,
Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
Inappropriate activation of the Wnt pathway resulting from ß-catenin gene alterations has recently been implicated in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). To explore the in vivo effects of mutated ß-catenin, HCC specimens from 32 patients carrying one or several tumors were screened for somatic mutations in exon 3 of the ß-catenin gene, and the expression and subcellular localization of ß-catenin was studied by immunohistochemistry. Missense mutations or interstitial deletions in ß-catenin exon 3 were detected in 12 of 35 (34%) HCC samples. After immunostaining, most tumors exhibited increased membranous and/or cytoplasmic expression of ß-catenin compared with adjacent nontumoral liver. Strong nuclear accumulation of ß-catenin was observed either focally or uniformly in 15 of 35 (43%) tumor specimens, but not in cirrhotic nodules or dysplastic liver cells in adjacent liver. Aberrant nuclear expression of ß-catenin was significantly associated with the presence of mutations in the ß-catenin gene (P < 0.005). Moreover, nuclear ß-catenin staining correlated significantly with increased Ki-67 proliferative index in tumor (P < 0.001) and seemed to be associated with poor outcome in patients with HCC. In conclusion, our data indicate that activation of the Wnt/ß-catenin pathway in HCC results mainly from somatic mutations in the ß-catenin gene and may promote tumor progression by stimulating tumor cell proliferation.
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