Promoter methylation and protein expression of the Slit2 and Robo1 genes in resected esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

10032 Background: Recent epigenetic studies suggest that the slit-robo pathway is involved in tumorigenesis of a number of human cancers and a role of SLIT2 as a tumor suppressor gene. In view of lack of epigenetic studies of SLIT2 and ROBO1 genes in squamous cell esophageal carcinoma (ESCC), we investigate whether promoter methylation is responsible for aberrant protien expression of SLIT2 and ROBO1 and whether promoter methylation and aberrant protein expression of these two genes are related to prognosis after resection for ESCC. Methods: We analyzed promoter methylation of SLIT2 and ROBO1 using methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (MSP) and their protein expression using immunohistochemistry in 60 resected tumor specimens. The Pearson χ2 test was used to compare promoter methylation and protein expression of SLIT2 and ROBO1 among patients with different clinicopathological parameters. Concordance analysis was performed between promoter methylation and protein expression of these two genes. R...