Fas receptor is expressed in human lung squamous cell carcinomas, whereas bcl-2 and apoptosis are not pronounced: a preliminary report

Abstract

Summary We report a pilot study on the Fas receptor (APO-1, CD95) in vivo in 15 human squamous cell (non-small) carcinomas and ten normal bronchial specimens. The principal aim was to investigate whether the so-called death receptor, Fas, is present in these tumours. Ligation of Fas promptly induces apoptosis, particularly in T Jurkat cells in vitro, and expression of Fas on human cancer would thus theoretically be of great interest. The immunoreactivity for the anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 was also investigated, and the degree of apoptosis was evaluated by TdT dUTP nick end labelling (TUNEL) and conventional morphological criteria. Fas was present in all initial tumours but absent in control tissue, that is in the potential precursor cells of bronchial epithelium (P = 0.001). Fas was not detectable after radiotherapy (P = 0.03). We propose that radiotherapy induces an early selection of tumour cells rather than a down-regulation of Fas. Both Bcl-2 and apoptosis (TUNEL) were generally expressed at a modest level. In agreement with other studies, we did not find any significant correlation between Bcl-2 and prognosis, or between Bcl-2 and TUNEL. Hence, in this preliminary report, we have demonstrated Fas receptor in human squamous cell carcinomas in vivo. This is a novel finding, and the apparent absence of Fas after radiotherapy may have important therapeutic implications.

Expressions of Fas ligand and other apoptosis-related genes and their prognostic significance in epithelial ovarian neoplasms

“…Human Fas antigen consists of 325 amino acids and transduces death signal conferred by anti-Fas antibody or Fas L. Fas expression was reported in various kinds of human malignancies, including ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma (OwenSchaub et al, 1994;Hellquist et al, 1997;Wakahara et al, 1997). In our study, 74% of patients with ovarian neoplasms showed Fas expression without significant difference in the frequency of Fas expression between histologic types.…”

Soluble Fas in malignant pleural effusion and its expression in lung cancer cells

“…Hellquist et al 32) reported Fas expression in all of eight lung squamous cell carcinomas using immunohistochemistry. Nambu et al 33) also reported the expression of Fas protein in 20 of 42 lung adenocarcinoma tissues (47.6%), and sFas mRNA in four of seven tumor samples.…”

Fas ligand expression in esophageal carcinomas and their lymph node metastases

“…20 Previously, it has been shown that squamous cell carcinomas of the tongue and oral cavity, lung, and squamous cell carcinoma cell lines express Fas. [21][22][23][24] In a recent study, however, Fas expression in ESCCA was found to be heterogeneous and essentially absent in the majority of cases, although it was expressed in the Immunoperoxidase staining was done with hematoxylin counterstaining (original magnification ϫ100).…”