Expression and significance of neurogenic differentiation protein in pancreatic carcinoma / 中华病理学杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the expression and significance of neurogenic differentiation protein (NeuroD) in pancreatic carcinoma.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The expression of NeuroD, PCNA and p53 proteins in 127 specimens of pancreatic carcinoma was detected by tissue microarray and immunohistochemestry. The correlations were analyzed between NeuroD and PCNA, p53, neural invasion, sleeve-like lymphocytic infiltration around the nerve, pancreatitis adjacent to carcinoma, lymph node metastasis and age, gender, location of tumors, histological types and differentiation of pancreatic carcinomas.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The positive rates of NeuroD, PCNA and p53 expression were higher in pancreatic carcinoma than those in non-tumor pancreatic tissues [64.6% (82/127) vs 10.5% (8/76), 57.5% (73/127) vs 9.2% (7/76), 59.1% (75/127) vs 9.2% (7/76), P < 0.01]. NeuroD expression in pancreatic carcinoma was related to that of PCNA and p53 and neural invasion (P < 0.05). No significant correlation was found between NeuroD and age, gender, tumor location, histological types and differentiation, sleeve-like lymphocytic infiltration, pancreatitis adjacent to the carcinoma and lymph node metastasis in pancreatic carcinomas.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>NeuroD overexpression in pancreatic carcinoma. The overexpression of NeuroD may contribute to the tumorogenesis and development of pancreatic carcinoma, and is closely correlated to the cancer cell proliferation, p53 signal pathway and neural invasion in pancreatic carcinoma.</p>