Immunohistochemical evaluation of minichromosome maintenance protein 7 in astrocytoma grading.
The minichromosome maintenance (MCM) proteins, which play an important role in eukaryotic DNA replication, represent a group of proteins that are currently under investigation as novel diagnostic tumor markers. Several studies have proved a greater reliability of MCM proteins to stain proliferating cells compared to Ki67 protein, a routinely used proliferation marker in histopathology. In the present study, the expressions of MCM7 and Ki67 were estimated in 66 primary human astrocytomas in relation to tumor grade (Grade I-IV, WHO). MCM7 significantly stained more nuclei compared to Ki67 in all the histopathological grades investigated. In addition, a stronger increase of the MCM7 labelling index, in relation to the tumor aggressiveness, was observed.
Facoetti
A
A
Dipartimento di Biologia Animale, Università di Pavia, Pavia, Italy. facoetti@unipv.it
Ranza
E
E
Grecchi
I
I
Benericetti
E
E
Ceroni
M
M
Morbini
P
P
Nano
R
R
D001254:Astrocytoma / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D018797:Cell Cycle Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D019394:Ki-67 Antigen / Q000378:metabolism; D064168:Minichromosome Maintenance Complex Component 7; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D011379:Prognosis; D018809:Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen / Q000378:metabolism
D018797:Cell Cycle Proteins; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D019394:Ki-67 Antigen; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D018809:Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen; C101624:MCM7 protein, human; D064168:Minichromosome Maintenance Complex Component 7