9%) with liver artery invasion in 34 cases of Slug

nonoverexpression. In addition, 10/18 showed remarkably high Slug mRNA CUDC-907 molecular weight levels (R > 200), and these were all with portal vein invasion. E-cadherin protein expression in EHC samples with or without Snail/Slug mRNA overexpression Expression of E-cadherin protein was also analyzed immunohistochemically. E-cadherin was expressed in membrane and/or cytoplasm.19 of 52 EHCs (36.5%) had a reduced expression pattern (Fig. 1). These findings did not significantly correlate with clinicopathological features such as distant metastasis, portal vein invasion, and liver artery invasion. The relationship between Snail/Slug mRNA expression and E-cadherin protein expression patterns was then determined in the EHC samples. Slug mRNA overexpression significantly

correlated with E-cadherin reduced expression (Table 2) . 13 (72.2%) of 18 cases overexpressing GDC0068 Slug showed a reduced E-cadherin expression pattern, whereas only 6 of 34 cases of Slug nonoverexpression (17.6%) had a reduced pattern, with a statistically learn more significant difference (P = 0.0001). However, there was no significant correlation between Snail overexpression and E-cadherin expression (Table 2) Figure 1 Representative example of the E-cadherin expression determined by immunohistochemistry. A, carcinoma cells showed strong expression (preserved pattern) in the Slug nonoverexpression case. B, carcinoma cells showed weak expression (reduced pattern) in the Slug overexpression case. (magnification, ×400). Table 2 Comparison of Snail and Slug expression between preserved and Docetaxel order reduced patterns of E-cadherin

  E-cadherin expression Preserved (n = 33) E-cadherin expression Reduced (n = 19) P Slug mRNA       Overexpression (n = 18) 5 (27.8) 13 (72.2)   Nonoverexpression (n = 34) 28 (82.4) 6 (17.6) 0.0001 Snail mRNA       Overexpression (n = 12) 7 (58.3) 5(41.7)   Nonoverexpression (n = 40) 26 (65) 14(35) 0.9993 Ectopic expression of Slug to down-regulate E-Cadherin expression in EHC cell lines E-Cadherin mRNA expression was examined in a panel of three cholangiocarcinoma cell lines QBC939, SK-Ch-1, FRH 0201 by real-time PCR and results showed that the cell line FRH 0201 had the highest expression level of E-Cadherin mRNA and the lowest expression of Slug mRNA (Fig 2A). In this regard, the cell line FRH 0201 was chosen for the studies.. Figure 2 A Expression of E-Cadher mRNA in QBC939, SK-Ch-1, FRH 0201 cells. In vitro cleavage effect of different ribozymes on E-Cadherin mRNA and Slug mRNA. The reaction product of in vitro ribozyme cleavage was analyzed by absolute real-time quantitative PCR. The amplification plots and standard curve were obtained with the in vitro transcript from E-Cadherin. Serial 10-fold dilutions with 9 × 108 to 9 × 10-2 pg per reaction well were made in EASY Dilution (Takara). Amplification was repeated three times for each dilution.