Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 7, 2017; 23(17): 3066-3076
Published online May 7, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i17.3066
Low-grade slightly elevated and polypoid colorectal adenomas display differential β-catenin-TCF/LEF activity, c-Myc, and cyclin D1 expression
Tian-Wen Yang, Yun-Han Gao, Sha-Ying Ma, Qiang Wu, Zhong-Fu Li
Tian-Wen Yang, Department of Gastroenterology, Yongchuan Hospital, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400014, China
Yun-Han Gao, Sha-Ying Ma, Qiang Wu, Zhong-Fu Li, Department of General Surgery, Chongqing Emergency Medical Center, Chongqing 400014, China
Author contributions: Yang TW and Gao YH contributed equally to this work and should be as the co-first authors; Yang TW, Gao YH, Ma SY, Wu Q and Li ZF designed the research; Gao YH and Ma SY performed the research; Wu Q analyzed the data; Yang TW wrote the paper.
Supported by the Yongchuan Chongqing Medical University Hospital Fund, No. YJYB2012009.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Yongchuan Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
Informed consent statement: All subjects recruited for this study provided written informed consent prior to participation.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare no conflicts of interest related to this work.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Zhong-Fu Li, MD, Department of General Surgery, Chongqing Emergency Medical Center, No. 1, Jiankang Road, Yongchuan District, Chongqing 400014, China. li_zhongfu@sina.com
Telephone: +86-23-63692253 Fax: +86-23-63692253
Received: September 11, 2016
Peer-review started: September 12, 2016
First decision: October 20, 2016
Revised: December 7, 2016
Accepted: January 18, 2017
Article in press: January 18, 2017
Published online: May 7, 2017
Core Tip

Core tip: We comparatively investigated the cellular and molecular characteristics of low-grade slightly elevated adenomas and low-grade polypoid adenomas. Slightly elevated lesions displayed a significantly lower apoptotic index as well as significantly upregulated β-catenin expression and β-catenin-TCF/LEF-driven transcriptional activity. Slightly elevated lesions also displayed c-Myc downregulation, cyclin D1 upregulation, upregulation of Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL, and downregulation of caspase-9 and caspase-3 activity. Low-grade slightly elevated adenomas displayed a lower apoptotic activity relative to low-grade polypoid adenomas, which can be partly attributed to upregulated β-catenin pathway activity and downregulated c-Myc expression.