Oncol Rep 2011, 25:1297–1306.PubMedCrossRef 37. Lao VV, Grady WM: Epigenetics and colorectal cancer. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 2011, 8:686–700.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef 38. Noda H, Kato Y, Yoshikawa H, Arai M, Togashi K, Nagai H, Konishi F, Miki Y: Frequent involvement of ras-signalling pathways in both polypoid-type

and flat-type early-stage colorectal cancers. J Exp Clin Cancer Res 2006, 25(2):235–242.PubMed 39. Casadio V, Molinari C, Calistri D, Tebaldi M, Gunelli R, Serra L, Falcini F, Zingaretti C, Silvestrini R, Amadori D, Zoli W: INK1197 DNA Methylation profiles as predictors of recurrence in non muscle invasive bladder cancer: an MS-MLPA approach. J Exp Clin Cancer see more Res 2013, 32:94.PubMed Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Authors’ contributions CR and DC conceived and designed the study. MZ, GDM, MMT and GF carried out the immunohistochemistry assay and performed the pyrosequencing and MS-MLPA analyses.

ACG and LS were responsible for patient recruitment. LS and MP interpreted the immunohistochemistry results. ES, CZ and CM performed the statistical analyses. CR, DC, GDM, MZ, GF and ES drafted the manuscript. DA and WZ reviewed the manuscript for important intellectual content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.”
“Introduction The Snail superfamily of transcription factors includes Snail1, Slug,

and Scratch proteins, all of which share a SNAG domain and at least four functional zinc fingers [1]. Snail1 has four zinc fingers, located from amino acids 154 to 259, whereas Scratch and Slug each have five [2,3]. The comparison of these zinc-finger sequences has further subdivided the superfamily into Snail and Scratch families, with Slug acting as a subfamily within the Snail grouping. The Snail superfamily has been implicated in various processes relating to cell differentiation and survival [1]. First characterized in Drosophila melanogaster in 1984, Snail1 also has well-documented homologs in Xenopus, C. elegans, mice, chicks, and humans [4,5]. In humans, Snail1 is expressed in the kidney, thyroid, adrenal gland, lungs, Glutathione peroxidase placenta, lymph nodes, heart, brain, liver, and skeletal muscle tissues [6,7]. Snail1 is a C2H2 zinc-finger protein composed of 264 amino acids, with a molecular weight of 29.1 kDa [7] (Figure 1). The SNAI1 gene, which is 2.0 kb and contains 3 exons, has been mapped to chromosome 20q.13.2 between markers D20S886 and D20S109 [7]. A Snail1 retrogene (SNAI1P) exists on human chromosome 2 [8]. Figure 1 Amino acid sequences: human and mouse. This figure provides the human Snail1 amino acid sequence. The second representation of the sequence has important features such as phosphorylation sites and zinc fingers highlighted in various colors.