Correlation between gender and cytomorphonuclear characteristics in human melanomas and in vitro evidence of sex steroid-induced modifications in the morphonuclear characteristics of three human melanoma cell lines.
The influence of gonadal steroids on human melanoma still remains a controversial issue. The aim of our study was to investigate whether sex steroids may influence the biological characteristics of human melanoma. Such biological characteristics were monitored at the morphological level by means of computer-assisted microscope analysis of Feulgen-stained nuclei, which provides 28 quantitative variables describing the nucleus morphometry (size, anisonucleosis level) and chromatin pattern. This methodology was used to characterize the morphonuclear features in a series of 69 human melanomas (from formalin-fixed paraffin embedded tissues) including 28 male, 17 premenopausal and 24 postmenopausal female patients, and to investigate the effect of two sex steroids (5-alpha-dihydrotestosterone [DHT] and 17-beta-oestradiol [E2]) on three human melanoma in vitro models--the HT-144, SK-MEL-28 and C32 cell lines. The results show that the morphonuclear characteristics of melanoma originating from male and female patients are very distinct (P < 0.01). This difference is still more marked (P < 0.0005) when only premenopausal female patients are compared with male patients. The in vitro data show that both DHT and E2 are able to modify markedly (P < 0.001 to P < 0.0001) the nucleus morphometry and chromatin pattern of the three cell lines. Although the mechanism and the physiological outcome are still unknown, the present work shows that there is in vivo and in vitro evidence that the biological behaviour of human melanoma is influenced by sex steroids.
Loréa
P
P
Laboratoire d'Histologie, Faculté de Médecine, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
Decaestecker
C
C
Goldschmidt
D
D
Renard
N
N
André
J
J
Lipski
D
D
Van den Heule
B
B
Salmon
I
I
Darro
F
F
Kiss
R
R
D000328:Adult; D002460:Cell Line; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000187:drug effects / Q000473:pathology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D013196:Dihydrotestosterone / Q000494:pharmacology*; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D004958:Estradiol / Q000494:pharmacology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008545:Melanoma / Q000473:pathology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D017698:Postmenopause; D017697:Premenopause; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
D013196:Dihydrotestosterone; D004958:Estradiol