Figure 6.

The decreased expression of p120‐catenin (p120ctn) promotes BE1 cell growth, and tumors lacking p120ctn have malignant features in vivo.The tumors on the back of the mice, which were injected with untransfected cells (A) or control cells (B), were smaller than the tumors in the mice with transfected cells (C). The mean tumor weights in the BE1‐p120ctn^(–) group was significantly higher than in either the BE1 or control groups (D). Hematoxylin and eosin staining reveals that tumors in the BE1 group and control groups had clear boundaries (E). The p120ctn knockdown tumors showed characteristics of invasion (F). Similar observations were seen in the metastatic tumors. Liver metastatic tumor in BE1 cell‐injected mice had clear boundaries with noninvasive growth (G). Tumors in mice injected with BE1‐p120ctn^(–) cells showed characteristics of invasion (H), and nude mice injected with BE1‐p120ctn^(–) cells also developed leg (I) and heart (J) metastases, and pleural fluid formation (K), in which we can see the tumor cells by Papanicolaou staining (arrow). (E, F × 100 magnification, G–J × 200, and K ×400).