Esophageal carcinoma (EC) represents the 1^st rank among all gastrointestinal cancers in Sudan. Despite little publications, there is a deep absence of literature about the molecular pathogenesis of EC considering TP53 gene from Sudanese population.

In this study, we performed the expression analysis on p53 protein level by immunohistochemical staining and examined its overexpression with p53 mutations in exons 4 and 8 among esophageal cancer patients in Sudan.

Fixed tissue with 10% buffered formalin was stained by Hematoxlin and Eosin (H&E), Alcian blue-Periodic Acid Schiff (PAS) and Immunohistochemistry stain. PCR-RFLP was used to study the frequencies of p53 codon 72 R/P polymorphism. Conventional PCR and sanger sequencing were applied for exon 4 and exon 8. Then detection and functional analysis of SNPs and mutations were performed using various in bioinformatics tools.

Nuclear accumulations for p53 protein was detected in all of the esophageal carcinomas examined while no accumulations were observed in normal control sections. Four patients with immune-positive for p53 showed no mutations in p53 gene (exon4 and exon8). The incidence of the homozygous mutant variant Pro/Pro was higher in esophageal cancerous patients comparing to healthy control subject 20(71. 4%) vs. 1(10%), respectively (p=0.0026). In exon 4, no mutation was detected other than NG_017013.2:g. 16397C>G. While in exon 8, g.18783-18784AG>TT, g.18803A>C, g.18860A>C, g.18845A>T and g.18863_ 18864 InsT were observed.

we found a significant association between the overexpression of TP53 protein and mutation in exon 4 and 8. A silent mutation P301P was detected in all of examined cases. Two patients who diagnosed with small cell sarcoma have shared the same mutations in exon8. Further studies with large sample size are required to demonstrate the usefulness of these mutations in the screening of EC especially SCCE.