Zhang Mingming, Yang Dongchang, Li Lu, Liu Lin, Wang Ting, Liu Tao, Li Lei, Liu Yanrong
Department of Pathology, Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical University, Jining Medical University, Jining, China.
School of Clinical Medicine, Jining Medical University, Jining, China.
Front Oncol. 2022 Sep 12;12:972650. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.972650. eCollection 2022.
Hepatic carcinosarcoma (HCS) is defined as a tumor that contains cancer from the epithelium and sarcoma from mesenchymal tissue. HCS has a low incidence rate and is composed of osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, or angiosarcoma. Though surgery is the main treatment for HCS, it has proven unsatisfactory, resulting in a very poor prognosis of HCS. Currently, the reports on HCS are mainly about the description of clinical pathological phenomena, imaging features, and mutation sites of related genes, the underlying molecular mechanism of HCS remains undefined. Through the dynamic process of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), cancer cells acquire a mesenchymal phenotype, simultaneously losing epithelial properties. Zinc finger E-box binding homeobox 1 (ZEB1) is an EMT-inducing transcription factor; its main regulatory target is E-cadherin in EMT process. Esophageal carcinosarcoma (ECS) is associated with EMT. The current study showed that EMT might promote the development of ECS and uterine carcinosarcoma (UCS), and ZEB1 was highly expressed in the sarcomatous components. In the current study, three cases were collected, and the clinicopathological features were compared with those of corresponding cases. The expression level, and subcellular localization of ZEB1 were detected using immunohistochemistry. The expression of the ZEB1 in the nucleus was found to be significantly higher in sarcomatous components than that in cancer components in all three cases, suggesting an association of HCS with EMT.
肝肉瘤样癌（HCS）被定义为一种包含上皮来源的癌和间叶组织来源的肉瘤的肿瘤。HCS发病率较低，由骨肉瘤、软骨肉瘤或血管肉瘤组成。尽管手术是HCS的主要治疗方法，但已证明效果不佳，导致HCS预后很差。目前，关于HCS的报道主要是关于临床病理现象、影像学特征及相关基因突变位点的描述，HCS潜在的分子机制仍不明确。通过上皮-间质转化（EMT）的动态过程，癌细胞获得间质表型，同时丧失上皮特性。锌指E盒结合同源框1（ZEB1）是一种诱导EMT的转录因子；其在EMT过程中的主要调控靶点是E-钙黏蛋白。食管肉瘤样癌（ECS）与EMT有关。当前研究表明，EMT可能促进ECS和子宫肉瘤样癌（UCS）的发展，且ZEB1在肉瘤成分中高表达。在本研究中，收集了3例病例，并将其临床病理特征与相应病例进行比较。采用免疫组织化学检测ZEB1的表达水平及亚细胞定位。在所有3例病例中，均发现ZEB1在肉瘤成分中的细胞核表达显著高于癌成分，提示HCS与EMT有关。
