ABSTRACT
Purpose To explore the β-catenin role in the process of invasion and metastasis of esophageal cancer.Methods Transfection-effective β-catenin gene segments of siRNA interference in human esophageal Eca-109 cells was used to downregulate β-catenin expression:CCK-8 multiplication experiment was carried out to observe the esophageal cancer cell proliferation.Transwell chambers experiment was used to observe its invasion,migration ability.Western blot was used to detect the expression of WISP2 and TCF4,E-cadherin protein.Results CCK-8 multiplication experiment showed that in the interference group (the efficient transfection of β-catenin down-regulation group by siRNA) cell proliferation ability significantly decreased as compared with the blank control group (the untreated group)and the negative control group (the transfection group meaningless fragments) (P ＜ 0.05),and there was no statistical significance between the blank and negative control groups (P ＞0.05).The invasion and migration ability of the interference group was lower than that in the blank control group and the negative control group (P ＜ 0.05) by the transwell chambers experiment.Western blot showed that the protein lever of WISP2 and E-cadherin in interference group was higher than those in the blank control group and the negative control group (P ＜ 0.05).TCF4 protein expression in the interference group was lower than that of the blank control group and the negative control group (P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions After the β-catenin expression is down-regulated,Wnt signaling pathway-related factors are significantly changed.It can be speculated that the silencing of β-catenin in Wnt signaling pathway may hinder the esophageal cancer cell proliferation by up-regulating E-cadherin expression to obstruct epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) and to inhibit tumor cell proliferation.Invasion and metastasis of the tumor are also inhibited by reducing TCF4 expression and promoting WISP2 downstream target genes expression.Therefore,β-catenin gene is expected to be a target for the treatment of esophageal cancer.