Correlation of visinin-like-protein-1 expression with clinicopathological features in squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus.

EF-hand Ca(2+)-sensor proteins are key molecules for transducing Ca(2+) signals into physiological answers and changes in cytosolic Ca(2+) concentration control a variety of cellular responses, including proliferation, migration, and differentiation, which are relevant for tumor progression. The Ca(2+)-sensor visinin-like protein-1 (VILIP-1) has recently attracted major interest due to its putative tumor suppressor function. Whereas VILIP-1 is expressed in normal skin, it is downregulated in skin tumors in a murine tumor model. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of the Ca(2+)-sensor VILIP-1 in squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus and to correlate expression levels with clinicopathological features of the tumor. We examined VILIP-1 expression in 54 specimens of esophageal squamous cell carcinomas and 24 normal esophagus tissues, with immunohistochemical staining and immunofluorescence co-staining techniques. VILIP-1 expression was completely lost or significantly reduced in esophageal tumor tissue compared with normal squamous epithelium. Correlation with clinicopathological features indicated that there was significantly less VILIP-1 expression in lymph node positive (N = 1) versus lymph node negative (N = 0) tumors (P = 0.002). Although there was no significant difference between highly (G(1)), moderately (G(2)) and poorly differentiated (G(3)) tumors (P = 0.177), VILIP-1 expression in tumors is significantly correlated with the depth of tumor invasion (P = 0.028 between T1, T2, T3, and T4). In contrast, co-staining with the proliferation marker Ki-67 indicated no significant correlation with proliferation rates in tumors (Ki-67 index of the tumor). In summary, the expression of the Ca(2+)-sensor VILIP-1 was found to be lost during development of squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus. The protein expression level significantly correlates with invasive features, such as depth of tumor invasion and local lymph node metastasis, but not with proliferation rate of tumor cells.