Expression of claudin-11, -23 in different gastric tissues and its relationship with the risk and prognosis of gastric cancer

Claudins play an important role in regulating the permeability of epithelial and endothelial cells and in the maintenance of cell polarity. We aimed to investigate expression of claudin-11, -23 in different gastric tissues and its relationship with clinicopathologic parameters and prognosis of gastric cancer. We compared their expression levels in the paired cancerous tissues versus those in the adjacent noncancerous tissues by real-time PCR, western blotting and immunohistochemistry. The results showed that the expression of claudin-11, -23 was greatly increased in paracancerous gastric tissue compared with cancerous tissue. We also compared their expression levels of tissues from gastric cancer, superficial gastritis, and atrophic gastritis by immunohistochemistry. The results indicated that the expression of claudin-11 and 23 was significantly higher in superficial gastritis than that in atrophic gastritis and gastric cancer. The expression of claudin-23 was significantly lower in atrophic gastritis than that in gastric cancer, but no obviously difference was observed for claudin-11. As for analysis of clinicopathologic parameters of gastric cancer, logistic multiple regression indicated that claudin-11 was significantly associated with sex, smoking, alcohol, H. pylori infection and Borrmann classification while claudin-23 was significantly associated with vessel cancer embolus. Cox multivariate survival analysis indicated that gastric cancer patients with negative claudin-23 expression had significantly longer overall survival. In conclusion, the expression of claudin-11, -23 was remarkably downregulated in gastric cancer. Abnormal expression of these proteins was significantly correlated with some clinicopathologic parameters. In particular, claudin-23 positive expression was associated with poor prognostic outcomes of gastric cancer patients and may therefore serve as an independent prognosticator of patient survival.