[Immunohistochemical study on telomerase activity in ovarian sex-cord stromal tumors].
OBJECTIVE
Telomerase activity has been detected in a broad range of human cancers including epithelial malignancies from in female genital tract, but the expression of the telomerase activity in ovarian sex-cord tumors has not been reported up to now. In this report we investigated the telomerase activity in ovarian sex-cord stromal tumors and its relationship with clinicopathological feature.


METHODS
Twenty-five cases of ovarian sex-cord stromal tumor, including granulosa cell tumors, thecofibromas, sclerosing stromal tumors, and Sertoli-Leydig cell tumors were retrieved, and the expression of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTRT) was assessed immunohistochemically using polyclonal antibody H231.


RESULTS
hTRT were positive in 60.0% of all cases, and the signal mainly located in the cytoplasm of tumor cells, especially in luteinized cells and Ledig cells. The positive rate was significantly related to different histological types and the patients' clinical endocrinal manifestation (P value were 0.01 and 0.041, respectively), but no statistically significant difference was found between the expression of hTRT and tumor histological grade or patients' prognosis.


CONCLUSIONS
In ovarian sex-cord stromal tumors, the tumor component differentiating to luteinized stromal cell has high telomerase activity, and the telomerase activity may play an important role in patients' endocrinal disorder.
Liu
Ai-jun
AJ
Department of Pathology, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853.
Li
Zhi-jun
ZJ
Lu
Ya-li
YL
Chen
Le-zhen
LZ
Zhao
Po
P
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000473:pathology; D011379:Prognosis; D018312:Sex Cord-Gonadal Stromal Tumors / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000473:pathology; D019098:Telomerase / Q000032:analysis*
D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D019098:Telomerase