Expression of Focal Adhesion Proteins in Ulcerative Colitis Associated Neoplasia

Colorectal neoplasia is the abnormal growth of tissue in the colon, encompassing dysplasia as well as colorectal cancer cancer. Patients with inflammatory bowel disease have chronic inflammation in their colon. It is thought that the chronic inflammation places them at increased risk for colorectal neoplasia, whereby the colonic lining changes from at risk mucosa with chronic inflammation to dysplasia and ultimately cancer. In previous studies, several genes involved in focal adhesion were demonstrated to be increased in normal appearing colonic mucosa of patients who had colorectal neoplasia This experiment was performed to confirm the expression of focal adhesion proteins in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) associated neoplasia. We evaluated proteins thrombospondin 2, caveolin 1, and collagen in IBD associated neoplasia by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Conditions for the IHC process, including antigen retrieval methodology and primary antibody dilution, were optimized in normal control tissues. We used different tissue samples such as Ulcerative Colitis (UC) cancer, Diverticulosis Control, Sporadic Cancer, and Active UC from patients to stain for all three focal adhesion proteins. These studies demonstrated that all three proteins were expressed on different levels in IBD associated neoplasia. Therefore, we will investigate mechanisms of up-regulation of these protein in chronic inflammation and cancer in later studies