PTEN expression in patients with carcinoma of the cervix and its association with p53, Ki-67 and CD31

Abstract

PURPOSE: To investigate protein expression and mutations in phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) in patients with stage IB cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) and the association with clinical-pathologic features, tumor p53 expression, cell proliferation and angiogenesis. METHODS: Women with stage IB CSCC (n=20 -Study Group) and uterine myoma (n=20 -Control Group), aged 49.1±1.7 years (mean±standard deviation, range 27-78 years), were prospectively evaluated. Patients with cervical cancer were submitted to Piver-Rutledge class III radical hysterectomy and pelvic lymphadenectomy and patients in the Control Group underwent vaginal hysterectomy. Tissue samples from the procedures were stained with hematoxylin and eosin for histological evaluation. Protein expression was detected by immunohistochemistry. Staining for PTEN, p53, Ki-67 and CD31 was evaluated. The intensity of PTEN immunostaining was estimated by computer-assisted image analysis, based on previously reported protocols. Data were analyzed using the Student's t-test to evaluate significant differences between the groups. Level of significance was set at p<0.05. RESULTS: The PTEN expression intensity was lower in the CSCC group than in the Control (benign cervix) samples (150.5±5.2 versus 204.2±2.6; p<0.001). Our study did not identify any mutations after sequencing all nine PTEN exons. PTEN expression was not associated with tumor expression of p53 (p=0.9), CD31 (p=0.8) or Ki-67 (p=0.3) or clinical-pathologic features in patients with invasive carcinoma of the cervix. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate that the PTEN protein expression is significantly diminished in CSCC.

Inhibition of NF-kB and COX-2 by andrographolide regulates the progression of cervical cancer by promoting PTEN expression and suppressing PI3K/AKT signalling pathway

“…Besides that, the current study found that loss of PTEN expression and overexpression of PI3K was associated with clinical stage of cervical cancer (stage II and III respectively). Qiufeng et al 61 and Loures et al 62 revealed that loss of PTEN expression plays an important role in the multiple steps of tumorigenesis and progression of cervical squamous cell carcinoma, which is consistence with our results. Real-time PCR results showed that mRNA expression levels were significantly elevated, which also correlates with IHC findings of overexpression of NF-kB, COX-2, PI3K, and loss expression of PTEN in cervical squamous tissues compared to non-tumor tissue.…”

MicroRNA-494 promotes cervical cancer proliferation through the regulation of PTEN

“…More importantly, it has been confirmed that PTEN, which counteracts PI3K/Akt activity, is involved in various aspects of cancer development, such as inhibition of cell proliferation, apoptosis, migration and invasion (8,44,45). In particular, PTEN expression intensity is lower in cervical cancer than benign cervical samples (46) and a decreased expression of PTEN was found in invasive cervical cancers (47). From the previous study, we concluded that the PTEN/PI3K/Akt signaling pathway is important in the carcinogenesis and development of cervical cancer, thus identifying the molecules regulating PTEN/PI3K/Akt may be an attractive strategy for the underlying mechanism of cervical carcinogenesis.…”

Prognostic significance and therapeutic implications of PTEN, EGFR and MAPK/ERK in cervical squamous cell carcinoma

“…The absence of expression of this tumor suppressor protein is consistent with tumor progression.The present results are close to Lee et al [22] who detected that PTEN staining was inversely correlated to grade of differentiation and also with tumor stage. Different results by Loures et al [23] who found no associations between tumor PTEN expression and tumor stage, grade of differentiation or pelvic lymph node metastasis in CSCC cases, these contradictions may be due to selection of their studied cases which are mostly low grade lesions. Other contradictory results by Bertelsen et al [14] reported that PTEN is clearly positive in all tumor tissues including the mutated metastatic tumor.…”