Neuroendocrine Marker Expression in Thyroid Epithelial Tumors

Abstract

Tissue sections from 50 cases with thyroid tumors, composed of 11 follicular adenomas, 10 follicular carcinomas, 14 papillary carcinomas, 10 anaplastic carcinomas, and 5 medullary carcinomas, were immunohistochemically analyzed for representative neuroendocrine markers. Immunoexpression ratios of these neuroendocrine markers were as follows: Follicular adenomas, neuron-specific enolase (NSE)63.6%, synaptophysin (SynP) 45.5%, Leu7 27.3%, NCAM 45.5%, chromogranin A (CgA) 0%, SNAP25 0%; follicular carcinomas, NSE 90.0%, SynP 80.0%, Leu7 80.0%, NCAM 0%, CgA 0%, SNAP25 0%; papillary carcinomas, NSE 85.7%, SynP 78.6%, Leu7 100%, NCAM 7.0%, CgA 0%, SNAP25.0%; anaplastic carcinomas, NSE 10.0%, SynP 0%, Leu7 0%, NCAM 0%, CgA 0%, SNAP25 0%; medullary carcinomas, NSE 100%, SynP100%, Leu7 80.0%, NCAM 40.0%, CgA 100%, SNAP25 100%. The two follicular carcinomas, which were morphologically characterized by "insular" (or "alveolar") arrangements, showed distinct immunoexpression of NSE and SynP at the same time. By in situ hybridization (ISH), expression of mRNA for NSE was confirmed in cases with marked immunoexpression of NSE. Although no endocrine granules were found, our results suggested that a specific type of follicular carcinoma, i.e., insular variant, may be immaturely neuroendocrine-differentiated.

Potential diagnostic utility of CD56 and claudin-1 in papillary thyroid carcinoma and solitary follicular thyroid nodules

“…Similarly, previous studies reported negative CD56 expression in all or most of their studied PTC cases [3,[16][17][18]22,27,28].…”

“…Increased claudin-1 expression has been reported in PTC [12,13]. On the other hand, CD56, a neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) [14], has been reported to be expressed in normal thyroid follicular cells with frequent low expression in malignant thyroid tumors especially PTC [15][16][17][18]. CD56 regulates cell motility and hemophilic binding between neurons, hence its expression may affect the migratory capacity of tumor cells [19].…”

Immunohistochemical profile of well-differentiated thyroid neoplasms with follicular architecture

“…The results of our study indicate that the immunohistochemical reactivity for CK-19, CK-20, Gal-3, CP, SC, LF, HBME-1, Calc, Chrom-A, TTF-1, Syn and Thyr in papillary carcinomas, follicular carcinomas and follicular adenomas are consistent with those reported in the literature up to now [16][17][18][19][20][21].…”

Silencing of homeobox B9 is associated with down-regulation of CD56 and extrathyroidal extension of tumor in papillary thyroid carcinoma

“…CD56 is an adhesion molecule that mediates cell-to-cell adhesion through a homophilic binding mechanism [8,9]; down-regulation of CD56 can stimulate lymphangiogenesis and metastasis and is correlated with a poor prognosis in various cancers including colon carcinoma and pancreatic carcinoma [10][11][12][13]. The loss of CD56 expression has earlier been observed in cases of PTC [14,15]; however, its molecular mechanism of downregulation and relation to clinicopathologic features of PTC remain largely unknown [10].…”