Characterization of N-cadherin-containing cell-cell contacts of the liver

Cell-cell contacts play a pivotal role for multicellular organisms, not only in development, but also in tumour formation and progression, and molecular components of cell-cell contact structures are used with increasing frequency in immunohistochemical tumour diagnosis. Notably, cadherins, transmembrane glycoproteins of adherens junctions, are discussed to be involved in cancer formation and metastasis. In hepatocarcinogenesis, some reports have claimed that loss of E-cadherin, the classical epithelial cadherin, would promote tumour spread, and – surprisingly – others have also reported positive immunoreactions…