title: Expression of class III beta-tubulin in malignant epithelial tumours: an immunohistochemical study using TU-20 and TuJ-1 antibodies.
abstract: Class III beta-tubulin has been discovered as a marker of early phases of neuronal differentiation in developmental conditions, as well as in different tumours of neuronal origin. More recently, the expression of class III beta-tubulin molecule has been described as a marker of different types of malignant epithelial tumours. This study attempts to compare the immunostaining features of two different mouse monoclonal antibodies TU-20 and TuJ-1, both detecting class III beta-tubulin, in a group of twenty bioptically evaluated carcinomas of various sites. The proposal that class III beta-tubulin expression can correlate with the degree of tumour differentiation and thus could be potentially used as predictive marker of prognosis has been previously done; one of aims of our study was to confirm this hypothesis. Our results showed that both TuJ- 1 and TU-20 antibodies displayed similar immunostaining profile and pattern within individual tumours. Surprisingly, we discovered that only 50% of tumours included in our group showed expression of class III beta-tubulin, however, positive immunoreaction did not correspond with the degree of differentiation of individual tumours. In our group of carcinomas, the class III beta-tubulin positivity was not related to the tumour site, histologic type of tumour or its grade.
authors: Department of Pathology, 3rd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. tjirasek@fnkv.cz
authors: Tomás
authors: T
authors: Jirásek
authors: Eva
authors: E
authors: Písaríková
authors: Vladimír
authors: V
authors: Viklický
authors: Václav
authors: V
authors: Mandys
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000818:Animals; D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal / Q000276:immunology*; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008875:Middle Aged; D014404:Tubulin / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal; C498585:TUBB3 protein, human; D014404:Tubulin