Previous studies have shown that decorin expression is significantly reduced in colorectal cancer tissues and cancer cells, and genetic deletion of the decorin gene is sufficient to cause intestinal tumor formation in mice, resulting from a downregulation of p21, p27(kip1) and E-cadherin and an upregulation of β-catenin signaling [Bi,X. et al. (2008) Genetic deficiency of decorin causes intesti...

The expression of the Ca2+-dependent epithelial cell adhesion molecule E-cadherin (also known as uvomorulin and L-CAM) in the early stages of embryonic development of Xenopus laevis was examined. E-Cadherin was identified in the Xenopus A6 epithelial cell line by antibody cross-reactivity and several biochemical characteristics. Four independent mAbs were generated against purified Xenopus E-ca...

STUDY DESIGN The changes of endplate chondrocytes induced by intermittent cyclic mechanical tension (ICMT) were observed by realtime reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, immunofluorescence, and Western blot analysis. OBJECTIVE To investigate the role of RhoA/ROCK-1 signaling pathway and E-cadherin/P120-catenin complex in endplate chondrocytes degeneration induced by ICMT. SUMMAR...

Epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) correlates with high-grade malignancy including the competence to form metastases. In addition, EMT has recently been linked to cellular self-renewal programmes of cancer stem cells and apoptosis/anoikis resistance, which are all features of therapeutic resistance. The EMT programme is driven by several transcription factors (TFs), such as the transcri...

Expression of the epithelial cell adhesion molecule E-cadherin in primary and metastatic gastric carcinoma was examined using immunohistochemical analyses. Compared to normal mucosa, 92% of the primary tumors (n = 60) showed reduced E-cadherin expression, suggesting that down-regulation of this cell adhesion molecule is a common early event in gastric tumorigenesis. No significant correlation w...

The homeodomain transcription factors Cdx1 and Cdx2 are regulators of intestine-specific gene expression. They also regulate intestinal cell differentiation and proliferation; however, these effects are poorly understood. Previously, we have shown that expression of Cdx1 or Cdx2 in human Colo 205 cells induces a mature colonocyte morphology characterized by the induction of a polarized, columna...

E-cadherin is a transmembrane glycoprotein that mediates calcium-dependent, homotypic cell-cell adhesion and plays a role in maintaining the normal phenotype of epithelial cells. Decreased expression of E-cadherin has been correlated with increased invasiveness of breast cancer. In other systems, inappropriate expression of a nonepithelial cadherin, such as N-cadherin, by an epithelial cell has...

Transgenic mice that express conditional reporters allow for the isolation of specific cell lineages. These cells can be further stratified by gene expression and collected by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) for further analysis. Using Cre-recombinase (Cre) technology we have generated a transgenic mouse line termed PKCY in which all pancreatic epithelial cells and therefore all panc...