Clinical significance of Leptin receptor (LEPR) and Endoglin (CD105) expressions in colorectal adenocarcinoma.

PURPOSE

Carcinoma of the colon occurs quite more often in obese than in healthy people. The key molecule in the development of obesity is leptin, a product of Ob gene that expresses its effects through a specific receptor (LEPR), so our goal was to investigate the expression of LEPR in colorectal carcinoma and the association of their expression with neoangiogenesis, with local/regional and distant metastases and with tumor stage according to the Astler-Coller classification.

METHODS

In the paraffin blocks taken from 75 patients treated for colorectal cancer, 3-4 μm thick cuts were made using routine hematoxylin-eosin (HE) and immunohistochemical ABC methods with anti-LEPR and anti-CD105 antibodies. After quantitative analysis of LEPR expression, the microvascular density per mm2 was calculated stereometrically. For the statistical processing, the SPSS software (version 13.0) was used.

RESULTS

Pronounced expression of LEPR in stages B1 and B2 was present in 9.1% and in 16% of the cases. In the C2 and D stages, pronounced LEPR expression was found in 51.6%, i.e. 57.1% of the cases, which was significantly higher than in the stages B1 and B2. In the C2 and D stages, a high neoangiogenesis index was found in a significantly higher number of cases (67.7% and 100%) than in stages B1 and B2. LEPR expression had a highly significant correlation coefficient associated with tumor stage, neoangiogenesis index, metastases in the lymph nodes and with distant metastases.

CONCLUSION

The increase of LEPR expression was accompanied by increased neoangiogenesis and an increase in the metastatic potential of colorectal cancer.