Overexpression of Slug is associated with malignant progression of esophageal adenocarcinoma

Table 1 Semi-quantitative analysis of Snail, Slug and Twist in malignant progression of Barrett’s metaplasia to adenocarcinoma (Immunoreactivity score)

	S	BM (-ve)	BM (+ve)	ADC
Snail	2.4	2.5	2.9	8.7a
Slug	6.7	2.6	3.5	10.5ac
Twist	4.5	4.7	5.2	7.1

Semi-quantitative analysis of immunoreactivity for Snail, Slug and Twist in specimens of squamous esophagus (S); Intestinal type Barrett’s metaplasia without associated adenocarcinoma BM (-ve), intestinal Barrett’s metaplasia with associated adenocarcinoma BM (+ve) and esophageal adenocarcinoma (ADC). The mean staining scores were calculated for each type of mucosa and the mean fold change in protein expression was calculated.

^adenotes significant (P < 0.05) differences between adenocarcinoma and intestinal type Barrett’s metaplasia without associated adenocarcinoma.

^cdenotes significant (P < 0.05) differences between adenocarcinoma and intestinal type Barrett’s metaplasia with associated adenocarcinoma.