Mutation screen and RNA analysis disclose the changed splicing of the E-cadherin transcription in gastric cancer.

Gastric cancer (GC) is considered to be one of the leading cancers in East Asians, and mutations in the CDH1 gene and the reduced expression of E-cadherin are the most frequent genetic alterations in gastric cancer. In this paper, we reported two novel germline CDH1 nonsynonymous mutations, c.1296 C>G (N432 K) and c.1297 G>A (D433 N) detected in sporadic Chinese GC patients. RNA splicing analysis was used to evaluate mutations' effects on E-cadherin transcription and exon definition. We revealed that the c.1296 C>G (N432 K) variant can generate the E-cadherin exon9-skipping and may be a disease-causing mutation, while the c.1297 G>A (D433 N) mutation not. Moreover, we demonstrated the E-cadherin 1054del83 transcript is a frequent event in Chinese GC patients.