Immunocytochemical evaluation of primary human esophageal carcinomas and their xenografts for keratin, beta-chorionic gonadotropin, placental lactogen, alpha-fetoprotein, carcinoembryonic antigen, and nonspecific cross-reacting antigen.

The unlabeled antibody peroxidase-antiperoxidase technique was used to examine esophageal neoplasms for the tumor markers beta-human chorionic gonadotropin, human placental lactogen (HPL), alpha-fetoprotein, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), and nonspecific cross-reacting antigen (NCA) before and after xenotransplantation to athymic nude mice. In addition, keratin was used as an epithelial cell marker. Immunoreactive beta-human chorionic gonadotropin was detected in four of seven primary tumors and in three of seven xenografts. Two of seven primary tumors contained HPL immunoreactive cells while four of seven tumor xenografts had HPL immunoreactivity. alpha-Fetoprotein was detected in two of seven primary tumors and in one of seven xenografts. NCA and CEA were detected in six of seven primary tumors and in all tumor xenografts. Five of seven primary neoplasms and six of seven tumor xenografts were found to contain both NCA and CEA, while one tumor and its xenografts displayed only NCA immunoreactivity. All seven primary carcinomas displayed keratin immunoreactivity, but only six of the seven xenograft tumors showed keratin positive cells. When a tumor marker was detected in a primary tumor, it was usually found in at least some of the xenografts arising from that tumor. However, marker loss did occur with repeated passage of tumors in some cases. On the other hand, markers were expressed in xenografts which were not present in the corresponding primary tumor. In three instances, HPL was detected in xenografts derived from HPL negative primary carcinomas. This was also true for CEA and NCA in one case. These results show that tumor markers are expressed to varying degrees by tumors growing as xenografts in nude mice. In primary tumors, HPL is associated with poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinomas and this marker was found to appear in HPL negative tumors as the tumor cells became less differentiated while growing as xenografts in nude mice.