E-cadherin

E-cadherin is a calcium dependent transmembrane glycoprotein that mainly exists in epithelial cells, with various functions such as cell adhesion, signal transduction, polarity maintaining, and structure stabilizing. E-cadherin has been used in the diagnosis of lung cancer, gastric cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, bladder cancer and other tumors, especially in the differentiation between adenocarcinoma (+) and mesothelioma (-), breast ductal carcinoma (+) and breast lobular carcinoma (-). Moreover, E-cadherin is classified as a tumor suppressor, and its decreased expression is closely related to the malignant development of tumors and poor prognosis of patients. Some research found that the reduction of E-cadherin will stimulate cancer cell infiltration by inducing the loss of tight junction, degrade extracellular matrix by enhancing matrix metalloproteinase activity, and promote tumor angiogenesis by regulating multiple pathways. Meanwhile, E-cadherin may play a central role in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), and its down-regulation accompanied by up-regulation of N-cadherin is considered as the fundamental event of EMT occurrence.