title: Increasing incidence of CD44v7/8 epitope expression during uterine cervical carcinogenesis.
abstract: Splice variants of the cell surface glycoprotein CD44 (CD44v) have been implicated in the progression of various human tumors. In the present study, we have examined the expression pattern of a CD44v epitope encoded by the adjacent variant exons v7 and v8 during human cervical carcinogenesis. While only l/ll normal cervical squamous epithelia was positive for this epitope by immunohistochemistry, 4/21 samples of low-grade squamous intra-epithelial lesions (LSIL), 17/35 samples of high-grade squamous intra-epithelial lesions (HSIL), 11/12 samples of the HSIL subgroup of carcinomas in situ and 17/17 cases of invasive cervical carcinoma showed CD44v7/8 epitope expression. In addition to CD44 variant expression, we have analyzed 67 lesions for the presence of HPV16/18-DNA using PCR. Most of the samples expressing the v7/8 epitope were also HPV16-positive (29/32), whereas only 17/35 of the v7/8-negative samples were HPV16-positive. HPV18 DNA was found in only one invasive carcinoma. Our data suggests that high-risk HPV infection may precede CD44v7/8 expression and that the number of samples expressing the CD44v7/8 epitope increases during carcinogenesis and reaches nearly 100% at the carcinoma in situ stage. This CD44 epitope could, therefore, serve as a diagnostic marker of cervical squamous cell carcinomas and as a possible target for CD44v7/8 epitope-directed therapies.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Genetics, Research Center Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dall
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hekele
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ikenberg
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Göppinger
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bauknecht
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pfleiderer
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Moll
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hofmann
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ponta
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Herrlich
mesh_terms: D017398:Alternative Splicing; D001483:Base Sequence; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000235:genetics*; D002278:Carcinoma in Situ / Q000235:genetics*; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000737:chemistry; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D018960:Hyaluronan Receptors / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D027383:Papillomaviridae / Q000235:genetics; D011230:Precancerous Conditions / Q000382:microbiology; D002577:Uterine Cervical Diseases / Q000382:microbiology; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology* / Q000382:microbiology
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D004279:DNA, Viral; D018960:Hyaluronan Receptors