Abstract
BACKGROUND MBD1, the largest member of methyl binding domain family, has the most downregulated mRNA expression and upregulated methylation levels in advanced colorectal cancer (CRC). In this study, we evaluated the immune-histochemical expression of MBD1 in CRC and assessed its correlation with clinicopathological features to study its prognostic value in CRC. METHODS A total of 60 samples of CRC, from patients who underwent surgical gastroenterology operations, were randomly selected. The samples included one tumor-rich section per case and one adjacent tumor-free section as a normal control for that case. Then, immunohistochemistry (ICH) was performed for MBD1 protein on all samples and the expression of MBD1 was analyzed in cancerous and normal samples. In the next step, the correlation between MBD1 and clinicopathological features including age, sex, location of the tumor, grade, and stage were evaluated. RESULTS The expression of MBD1 protein had a significant downregulation in cancerous samples compared with normal control samples. This downregulation increased corresponding to both grade and stage of cancer. However, no correlation was seen between the expression of MBD1 and sex, age and location of the tumor. CONCLUSION MBD1 protein may be considered as a protein marker in the detection of CRC and its progression.