Yang Xiangshan, Lv Wenyuan, Shi Ranran, Cheng Shaomei, Zhang Jing, Xu Zhongfa
Department of Pathology, Affiliated Hospital of Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Jinan, Shandong, China.
Tumour Biol. 2014 Dec;35(12):12435-40. doi: 10.1007/s13277-014-2561-1. Epub 2014 Sep 4.
Papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PMC) is the most common subtype of thyroid carcinomas with satisfactory prognosis. Crk-like (CrkL) adaptor protein was identified in the development of many carcinomas. However, the clinical implications of CrkL protein in PMC were still unknown. Here, we conducted immunohistochemistry to test and analyze CrkL expression in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) (50 cases), PMC (50 cases), and nodular goiter (50 cases), and then western blot further identified the expression of CrkL proteins. In our present study, the positive rate and the mean optical density (MOD) value of CrkL expression in PTC and PMC tissues were statistically significantly different, compared with nodular goiter (p = 0.021, 0.037) and normal thyroid tissues (p = 0.003, 0.009), respectively. In addition, CrkL expression was not associated with age, gender, and tumor number. Conversely, significant differences between CrkL expression and metastasis (p < 0.01) and violation of capsule (p < 0.01) were observed. Notably, western blot indeed identified that the metastasis group of either PTC or PMC tissues had about twofold increased expression of CrkL compared with their non-metastasis groups (p < 0.05). In conclusion, CrkL is highly expressed in papillary thyroid carcinoma and papillary thyroid microcarcinoma and closely correlated to metastasis. Therefore, it is essential to carry out neck lymph node clearance in patients with papillary thyroid microcarcinoma.
甲状腺乳头状微小癌（PMC）是甲状腺癌最常见的亚型，预后良好。在许多癌症的发生发展过程中发现了类Crk（CrkL）衔接蛋白。然而，CrkL蛋白在PMC中的临床意义仍不清楚。在此，我们进行免疫组化检测并分析CrkL在甲状腺乳头状癌（PTC，50例）、PMC（50例）和结节性甲状腺肿（50例）中的表达，然后通过蛋白质印迹法进一步鉴定CrkL蛋白的表达。在本研究中，与结节性甲状腺肿（p = 0.021，0.037）和正常甲状腺组织（p = 0.003，0.009）相比，PTC和PMC组织中CrkL表达的阳性率和平均光密度（MOD）值在统计学上有显著差异。此外，CrkL表达与年龄、性别和肿瘤数量无关。相反，观察到CrkL表达与转移（p < 0.01）和包膜侵犯（p < 0.01）之间存在显著差异。值得注意的是，蛋白质印迹法确实鉴定出，与非转移组相比，PTC或PMC组织的转移组中CrkL的表达增加了约两倍（p < 0.05）。总之，CrkL在甲状腺乳头状癌和甲状腺乳头状微小癌中高表达，且与转移密切相关。因此，对甲状腺乳头状微小癌患者进行颈部淋巴结清扫至关重要。
