engleski

Overexpression of glycoprotein 96 in uterine cervical intraepithelial lesions

Gp96, is a highly conserved endoplasmic reticulum resident heat shock protein, which as a chaperone assists the proteins in their folding, stability, assembly into multi-protein complexes and transport across cellular membranes. Depending on intracellular or extracellular location it, however, might have a dual function, mediating cytoprotective or immunological functions, respectively, owing to its anti-apoptotic or immunogenic properties, related with its carrier function for immunogenic peptides and its maturation effect on dendritic cells. Since it might be involved also in numerous oncogenic proteins folding and cross-presentation of tumor specific peptides within MHC molecules, in this study we attempted to investigate the expression of gp96 in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia of different grades (CIN I-III), which have been described as premalignant lesions for carcinoma in situ. Material consisted of 20 uterine specimens with CINs and 5 intact cervices and Gp96 expression was analyzed on paraffin embedded tissues by Dako EnVision+ detection system. In normal cervix gp96 expression was slightly expressed only in basal cells of stratified mucosal epithelium, while in dysplastic areas an overexpression of gp96 was found in cytoplasm of epithelial cells located particularly in superficial layers of epithelium, on vascular epithelia, as well as on in endocervical glandular epithelium. In addition, particularly in CIN III the inflammatory infiltration composed of gp96 immunopositive lymphoid cells in lamina propria and cervical stroma adjacent to dysplastic lesions were observed, implying that enhanced expression of gp96 may be related to the development of cervical cancer, as well as to initiation of antitumour immune response.

gp96; cervical intraepithelial lesions

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