Expression of aquaporin 3 in four cutaneous tumors / 中华皮肤科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the expression of aquaporin 3 (AQP3) in lesions of four cuta-neous tumors. Methods Immtmohistochemistry was utilized to measure the expression of AQP3 in tissue samples from 30 patients with seborrheic keratosis, 15 patients with Bowen's disease, 32 patients with squa-mous cell carcinoma, 17 patients with malignant melanoma and 15 normal human controls. Results AQP3 was observed in all the tissue samples from both patients and controls. A significant increment was noticed in the expression of AQP3 in patients with Bowen's disease, squamous cell carcinoma and malignant melanoma compared with the normal controls (all P < 0.01), while no significant difference was found between patients with seborrheic keratosis and the controls (P > 0.05). The highest expression of AQP3 was obtained in lesions from patients with squamous cell carcinoma and malignant melanoma, followed by those with Bowen's disease (both P < 0.01), and there was no significant difference between squamous cell carcinoma and malignant melanoma (P > 0.05). The differentiation status of squamous cell carcinoma significantly corre-lated with the expression of AQP3 (P < 0.01). AQP3 was significantly higher in malignant melanoma with metastasis than that in malignant melanoma without metastasis (P < 0.05). Conclusion The expression of AQP3 is upregulated in malignant skin tumors.