title: Infantile hemangioma is a proliferation of beta 4-negative endothelial cells adjacent to HLA-DR-positive cells with dendritic cell morphology.
abstract: Although hemangioma is referred as to the most common tumor in infancy, the underlying pathogenetic events and the biologic origin of this benign vascular neoplasm have remained obscure. By using immunohistochemistry on frozen sections of infantile hemangiomas, we show here that proliferating endothelial cells abundantly expressed alpha(v)beta(3) but lacked beta(4) integrins. Instead, regressing and involuting infantile hemangiomas due to treatment with IFN-alpha showed positive staining of beta(4) integrin, which might point to the angiogenic significance of beta(4) integrin in infantile hemangiomas. Moreover, immunofluorescence analysis revealed the existence of HLA-DR(+), mostly CD68(+) and partly DC-SIGN/CD209(+) cells with dendritic cell morphology in the intimate vicinity of hemangiomatous vessels. Such cells were also detected in the dermal microvascular unit in normal skin. The coupled occurrence of vascular structures and perivascular cells that were stained positive with markers of monocyte or macrophage or dendritic cells might suggest that the development of infantile hemangioma is a result of vasculogenesis, that is, the formation of primitive blood vessels from angioblasts, rather than of angiogenesis, that is, the sprouting of capillaries from preexisting vessels.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria.
authors.forename: Van Anh
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fürhapter
authors.forename: Nikolaus
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Romani
authors.forename: Florian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Weber
authors.forename: Norbert
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sepp
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002455:Cell Division; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003713:Dendritic Cells / Q000378:metabolism; D042783:Endothelial Cells / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D006684:HLA-DR Antigens / Q000378:metabolism; D006391:Hemangioma / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D007223:Infant; D039663:Integrin beta4 / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D009389:Neovascularization, Pathologic / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D006684:HLA-DR Antigens; D039663:Integrin beta4