Implication of the Galectin-3 in colorectal cancer development (about 325 Tunisian Patients)*

Abstract Galectin-3 is a specific soluble lectin of the β-galactoside family. It plays an important role in cell adherence, proliferation, and differentiation. It has also been shown that galectin-3 expression correlates with tumor progression in several types of cancers. We investigated the involvement of galectin-3 in colorectal cancer development. We performed a comparative immunohistochemical analysis of galectin-3 expression in term of intensity and distribution in normal mucosa, in primary tumor and in metastasis from 200 patients with colorectal cancer selected among 325 cases. We also compared the galectin-3 staining according to the histological subtype (mucinous vs non mucinous), tumoral differentiation and stage of tumor. We showed a strong and diffuse positive staining of galectin-3 in both adjacent and distanced normal mucosa, in well differentiated adenocarcinoma and in metastasis. However, we note a progressive decrease of galectin-3 staining according to the decreasing degree of tumoral differentiation. We also observed a loss of this protein in adenocarcinoma with mucinous component