Clinicalsubunitssignificance of α4，β1 and β4 integrinexpression in stomach carcinomas its lymph metastases

By immunohistochemical staining，expression of α4、β1、β4 and integrin subunits was detected in different tissue from patients with gastric cancer (GC)，whichinclude primary GC，lymph nodes with or without metastasis and normal gastric membrane near to the umour. Results showed that these three subunits not only were disorderally distributed in GC and its ymph metastases，but also were dramat-ically expressed in primary GC and/or lymph nodes，especially with metastasis，than that of normal gastric membrane.To staining of primary GC on the sub-units，especially there were significant differences between different clin-ical pathological factors such as growth patterns，differentiation，infiltration depth，liver metastasis and Borrmann types，respectively·Results suggested thatcharacterastics of distribution of α4、β1、β4 integrin subunits are significantly changed on the surface of GC cells in the primaries and its metastases，both of their increasing expression and their decreasing expression may be play an impor-tant role on the invasive and metastatic progression of GC.