Department of Pathology, Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10467, United States of America.
Department of Pathology, Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10467, United States of America.
Ann Diagn Pathol. 2019 Apr;39:86-91. doi: 10.1016/j.anndiagpath.2019.02.009. Epub 2019 Feb 15.
Spectrins are a group of cytoskeletal proteins which participate in many important cellular functions. It has been suggested that loss of spectrin isoforms may be associated with tumorigenesis of lymphoma, leukemia, gastric cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We recently reported that βI spectrin expression was present in normal hepatocytes but lost in HCC cells, which suggested that spectrins may be helpful markers in diagnosis of HCC. In this study, using immunohistochemical staining, we further investigated the expression pattern of four spectrin isoforms (αII, βI-III) on different benign and malignant liver tumors including focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH), hepatic adenoma (HA), HCC, and cholangiocarcinoma (CC). The results revealed that βI spectrin was moderately to strongly positive in FNH and HA tissues, but was only weakly positive or lost in HCC cases and was weakly positive in all CC cases. In addition, the βIII spectrin, majority of which was moderately positive in both FNH and HA tissues, was mostly lost in poorly differentiated HCC but remained at least moderately positive in most CC cases. These results suggest that spectrins βI and βIII may be used to differentiate well differentiated HCC from FNH or HA, and poorly differentiated HCC from CC, respectively.
spectrins 是一组细胞骨架蛋白，参与许多重要的细胞功能。已经有人提出， spectrin 同工型的缺失可能与淋巴瘤、白血病、胃癌和肝细胞癌 (HCC) 的肿瘤发生有关。我们最近报道，βI spectrin 在正常肝细胞中表达，但在 HCC 细胞中丢失，这表明 spectrins 可能是 HCC 诊断的有用标志物。在这项研究中，我们使用免疫组织化学染色，进一步研究了四种 spectrin 同工型（αII、βI-III）在不同良性和恶性肝肿瘤（包括局灶性结节性增生 (FNH)、肝腺瘤 (HA)、HCC 和胆管癌 (CC))中的表达模式。结果表明，βI spectrin 在 FNH 和 HA 组织中呈中度至强阳性，但在 HCC 病例中仅呈弱阳性或缺失，在所有 CC 病例中呈弱阳性。此外，βIII spectrin 在 FNH 和 HA 组织中大部分呈中度阳性，在分化不良的 HCC 中大部分缺失，但在大多数 CC 病例中仍至少呈中度阳性。这些结果表明，spectrins βI 和 βIII 可分别用于区分分化良好的 HCC 与 FNH 或 HA，以及分化不良的 HCC 与 CC。
