Background: SLUG, which is included in the group of zinc finger type proteins, is regarded as major epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) inducers to inhibit the transcription of cell adhesion molecules, including E-cadherin. Some signaling pathways, such as the phosphoinositide 3-kinase/protein kinase B (PI3K/AKT) pathway, upregulate the expression of SLUG, Slug antisense could prevent EMT indicating that the Slug gene could act a treatment target for tumor invasion and metastasis.
Objective: To studied SLUG immunohistochemical stain expression among Type I (endometrioid) endometrial carcinoma and Type II (serous) endometrial carcinoma.
Patients and methods: Thirty paraffin-embedded endometrial tissue samples were diagnosed as 24 endometrioid endometrial carcinoma (Type I), and 6 serous endometrial carcinoma (Type II) were collected. All endometrial tissue samples of endometrial carcinoma were obtained through hysterectomy. The specimens were collected from archive of surgical pathology files of Pathology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Al-AzharUniversity, during the period from 2018 till December, 2020.
Results: There was a statistically significant correlation between SLUG expression and grade of endometrial carcinoma (P value<0.001). No case of endometrial carcinoma showed complete absence of SLUG expression. All of the cases (10 cases) of high-grade endometrial carcinoma (4 cases type I and 6 cases type II), showed expression of SLUG in varying degrees of expression, and (5 cases) 50% showed expression of SLUG in more than 50% tumor cells (strong expression), 2 cases 8.3% of type I (EECA) and three cases 50% of type II (serous endometrial ca.). There was no statistically significant correlation between SLUG expression and the age of cases (P value = 0.206). There was no statistically significant correlation between SLUG expression and the types of the endometrial carcinomas (P value 0.002).
Conclusion: SLUG immunohistochemical stain expression was very significantly correlated to the grade and stage of endometrial carcinoma. The correlation between expression of SLUG and high tumor grade, stage are suggesting that SLUG may serve as a prognostic indicator in esophageal carcinoma (EC).