A novel clinical role for angiopoietin-1 in malignant pleural mesothelioma.
Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is an aggressive malignant tumour associated with asbestos exposure that has only a limited response to conventional therapy; therefore, diagnosing MPM early is very important. We have previously reported that angiopoietin (Ang)-1 was correlated with bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis. Here, we investigated the association of Ang-1 with the development of MPM cells, which originate from mesenchymal cells similar to lung fibroblasts, and demonstrated that Ang-1 stimulated the growth and migration of MPM cells in vitro. We also demonstrated that patients with MPM had significantly higher serum levels of Ang-1 in comparison to a population who had been exposed to asbestos but had not developed MPM. The patients with advanced-stage MPM showed higher levels of Ang-1 than the early-stage MPM patients and the Kaplan-Meier method revealed a significant correlation between serum Ang-1 levels and survival. We propose the possibility that Ang-1 plays an important role in MPM tumour growth and our data suggest that the serum concentration of Ang-1 could be useful as prognostic factor.
Tabata
C
C
Division of Respiratory Medicine, Dept of Internal Medicine, Hyogo College of Medicine, 1-1 Mukogawa-cho, Nishinomiya, Hyogo 663-8501 Japan. ctabata@hyo-med.ac.jp.
Hirayama
N
N
Tabata
R
R
Yasumitsu
A
A
Yamada
S
S
Murakami
A
A
Iida
S
S
Tamura
K
K
Fukuoka
K
K
Kuribayashi
K
K
Terada
T
T
Nakano
T
T
D042683:Angiopoietin-1 / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics*; D042702:Angiopoietin-2 / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D001195:Asbestosis / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D002455:Cell Division / Q000502:physiology; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D002465:Cell Movement / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000166:cytology; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D051379:Mice; D016513:Mice, SCID; D018301:Neoplasms, Mesothelial / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D010997:Pleural Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D011379:Prognosis; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism; D042787:Receptor, TIE-2 / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism
C467630:ANGPT1 protein, human; D042683:Angiopoietin-1; D042702:Angiopoietin-2; D015415:Biomarkers; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D042787:Receptor, TIE-2