| Summary: | 碩士 === 中山醫學大學 === 營養學研究所 === 96 === Hedgehog(Hh) signaling pathway has been proved strongly related to the cell differentiation. In particular, its overexpression has been suggested to be involved in the progress in colon cancer.In this study, we collected tissues from colon cancer patients, and defined the specimen according to their pathological features into three categories. They were classified as well-differentiated, moderate and poor-differentiated levels. Using immunohistochemical staining techniques, we observed the expression status of Hh signaling pathway including Hh per se, and its transcription factor Gli1, and two crucial markers of colon cancer stem cells, CD44 and CD133. We examined expression level and location of all markers, and correlate the relation between Hh signaling pathway and colon cancer stem markers. When we compared the expression status between (1) Hh and Gli1, (2) Hh and CD44, (3) Hh and CD133, (4) Gli1 and CD44,and (5) Gli1 and CD133, the results demonstrated clearly that in each group they were all highly significantly different between well, moderate, and poor-differentiated tumor cells (p<0.01). This suggested that Hh signaling pathway may intrigue with CD44 and CD133 and both play important roles in colon tumorigenesis. Our results may contribute for colon cancer prevention and treatments. Hh signaling pathway is also interacting with hemopoietic stem cell process, therefore in the second part of this study, we examined the relationship between the activation of Hh signaling pathway during acute inflammation. We discovered that during acute inflammation, Hh was highly activated in the peripheral blood cells. Our findings provide the linkage between acute inflammation and abundant expression of Hh pathway in the blood cells.
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