OBJECTIVETo investigate the expression of annexin I in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and carcinomas of other histological types in order to analyze the correlation between the expression of annexin I and carcinogenesis.

METHODSFirst, a set of tissue microarray was established, which consisted of SCC from the esophagus (208 cases), lung, larynx, cervix, and external genital organs; adenocarcinomas from the lung, stomach, colon and rectum, liver, pancreas, breast, thyroid and kidney with 30 cases in each group, meanwhile, the corresponding normal tissue was also obtained for control. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of annexin I in different types of carcinomas and the corresponding normal controls from different organs. The correlation between the expression of annexin I and the clinicopathological feature was analyzed and compared, which included age, gender, differentiation grade and lymph node metastasis.

RESULTSIt was found that the expression of annexin I was decreased in esophageal SCC, when compared with normal esophageal squamous epithelia (P < 0.001), the similarity was also found in SCC of the lung, larynx and cervix. However, though negative in normal epidermis, annexin I expression was detected in some cases with SCC from external genital organs. Annexin I was found to be overexpressed in adenocarcinomas of the lung, stomach, colon and rectum, liver, pancreas, breast, thyroid and kidney, particularly very strong expression of annexin I was seen in lung adenocarcinoma, uterine endometrioid adenocarcinoma and ovarian serous adenocarcinoma. Interestingly, it was found to be positive in all thyroid papillary carcinomas, but negative in all normal thyroid glands. However, annexin I expression was found to be negative in all hepatocellular carcinoma and normal hepatocytes; and it was only detected in myoepithelium of normal breast tissue, but not in ductal luminal cells, and rarely in infiltrating ductal adenocarcinoma. In SCC, annexin I expression was stronger in well differentiated ones than that in the poorly differentiated ones. However, contrasting with SCC, in the adenocarcinomas from different organs, annexin I expression was much stronger in poorly differentiated ones than that in the well differentiate ones, especially in the adenocarcinomas from stomach, colon and rectum, pancreas, ovarian and kidney.

CONCLUSIONAnnexin I expression is quite different among different types of carcinomas, and is correlated with histopathological type and differentiation grade. Further study is needed to investigate its role in the carcinogenesis.