Loss of nuclear ribonucleoprotein antigens in human skin cancers. A preliminary report

Abstract

Affinity-purified autoantibodies against nuclear ribonucleoprotein (nRNP) antigens were applied to fresh-frozen sections of benign tumors, carcinomas in silu, and carcinomas of the human skin. Using indirect immunofluorescence, the benign lesions showed speckled nuclear staining as seen in the normal epidermis. Invasive tumors such as basal cell epitheliomas and squamous cell carcinomas, in contrast, lacked im-munoreactivity for nRNP antigens. Recently, ribonucleoprotein complexes defined by nRNP antigens have been postulated to be involved in the excision of intervening sequences of premessenger ribonucleic acids (RNAs). Our findings provide useful information for the understanding of the pathophysiology of human skin cancers.