doi:10.1369/jhc.5A6765.2006
Volume 54 (7): 753-761, 2006 Copyright ©The Histochemical Society, Inc. Haymaker Gene Expression in Malignant and Normal Gynecologic Tissues
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (MEB,OA), Department of Surgery (BD,AJN), Transplant Immunology and Immunogenetics Laboratory (BD,AJN), Department of Medicine (BD,AJN), Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology (AJN), Department of Pathology (CAA), and Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health (ESM), State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York Correspondence to: Allen J. Norin, PhD, Box 1197, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, 450 Clarkson Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11203. E-mail: allen.norin{at}downstate.edu
We previously reported that cell lines established from human carcinomas and leukemias/lymphomas expressed high levels of an intracellular membrane-bound protein, Haymaker, whereas cell lines derived from non-malignant connective tissue cells and lymphoid cells expressed low levels of this gene product. To determine whether these findings reflect neoplastic transformation or, alternatively, tissue specificity, we examined by immunohistochemical and molecular methods the expression of Haymaker in gynecologic organs with and without tumor. A highly specific, affinity-purified rabbit polyclonal antibody against a 25-mer Haymaker peptide was used for immunohistochemical staining and morphometric analysis of 85 tissue specimens. Immunohistochemical studies demonstrate, for the first time, that Haymaker protein is highly expressed in epithelial cells of the endometrium of the normal uterus and to a somewhat lesser extent in the mucosa of the normal vagina and cervix, but is poorly expressed or absent in cells of the connective tissue and smooth muscle strata of these organs (p<0.005). Significant differences in Haymaker expression, as assessed by immunohistochemistry, between malignant and normal gynecologic tissues were not observed (p=0.27). The expression of Haymaker protein does not appear, therefore, to be a marker of malignant transformation of the epithelium of gynecologic organs but rather distinguishes both normal and malignant epithelial cells from normal connective tissue and smooth muscle cells. (J Histochem Cytochem 54:753761, 2006)
Key Words: neoplastic transformation tissue specificity gynecologic organs gene expression
WE HAVE PREVIOUSLY EXAMINED the expression of Haymaker, an intracellular membrane-bound protein of approximately 38.5 kDa, in cell lines established from a variety of tumors (Das et al. 1997
Many normal gene products are overexpressed in tumors and have accordingly been clinically useful as markers for disease. Examples include carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), Ca125, inhibin, and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) (Gold and Freedman 1965 One hypothesis, consistent with our previous findings, is that Haymaker may play a role in the induction or maintenance of the malignant state. Alternatively, the malignant and non-malignant cells examined in our previous work may differ from one another in some other property, thereby excluding a role for Haymaker in the malignant transformation of tissues. For example, many of the cancer cell lines previously studied were derived from epithelia, whereas the non-malignant cells originated from normal connective tissue and peripheral blood. To evaluate these alternative proposals, we determined Haymaker gene expression by immunohistochemistry and RT-PCR in normal and malignant gynecologic organs.
Chemicals and Antibodies Reagents used for electrophoresis were purchased from Bio-Rad, Melville, NY. Titermax was purchased from the CytRx, Atlanta, GA. The A549 and K562 cell lines used in our study were purchased from the American Type Culture Collection, Rockville, MD, and were cultured, respectively, in DMEM and RPMI 1640 medium obtained from GIBCO BRL, Grand Island, NY. Tissue histology arrays were purchased from the Imgenex Company, San Diego, CA. Goat anti-rabbit IgG-alkaline phosphatase, Freund's adjuvant Incomplete, and all other chemicals were obtained from Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO. RNA isolation and RT-PCR kits and reagents were purchased from Qiagen, Inc., Stanford, CA. RT-PCR primers were obtained from GIBCO BRL. Agarose gel electrophoresis of RT-PCR products was documented using a UV light GelDoc system from UltraViolet Products, Upland, CA. Chemicals for immunostaining were purchased from Chemicon, Temecula, CA.
RT-PCR Studies
Production of Polyclonal Antibody
Immunohistochemistry
The immunostaining was performed using the streptavidin-biotin-peroxidase method (Hsu et al. 1981 All immunohistochemical sections were evaluated by two of the authors, independently (CAA and MEB), and a consensus was reached when opinions differed. Semi-quantitative analyses were recorded as an assessment of the percentage of cells that stained with the anti-Haymaker antibody and the intensity of staining. The categories 0%, 15%, 625%, 2650%, 5175%, and >75% were used to characterize the proportion of cells that expressed the Haymaker antigen. For those specimens that expressed Haymaker, the intensity of staining was graded on a +1, +2, or +3 scale.
Statistical Methods
A paraffin block was prepared with cultured A549 cells and used as a positive control, because these cells are known to have a high level of Haymaker expression (Das et al. 2001
A total of 85 gynecologic tissue specimens were examined by immunohistochemistry. These specimens consisted of 10 sections from ovarian carcinoma, 7 from normal ovarian organs, 23 endometrial carcinomas, 2 malignant mixed mullerian tumors, 14 normal endometrial sections, 7 normal myometrial sections, 12 cervical carcinomas, 4 normal cervical sections, 2 normal vaginal sections, and 4 normal lymph nodes. Of the 85 patient specimens that were examined, there were 21 paired specimens in which tumor was matched to normal adjacent tissue from the same patient. The remaining 43 specimens were unmatched (25 with tumor and 18 normal). All epithelial tissues reacted with the anti-25-mer peptide antibody. Examples of the typical staining patterns of endometrial tissues with the anti-25 mer Haymaker antibody are shown in Figure 2 . We found the anti-25-mer antibody staining to be granular in nature and confined to the apical and basolateral areas of the cytoplasm of positive cells. The connective tissues of the stroma and the smooth muscle cells of the myometrium were usually devoid of stained cells.
Haymaker expression appeared greater in the columnar epithelial cells of the uterus as compared with the stratified squamous epithelium of the mucosa of the vagina and cervix. However, the squamous cells of the vagina and cervix stained to a much greater degree than the underlying connective tissue stroma and muscularis. The proportion of epithelial cells that reacted with the anti-25-mer Haymaker antibody is shown in Figure 3 . In no case (benign or malignant) did less than 25% of the epithelial cells stain; in 2 cases, between 26% and 50% of cells stained; in 6 cases, 51 to 75% of cells stained; and in the remaining 59 cases, more than 75% of the epithelial cells stained for Haymaker protein. A high proportion of all of epithelial cells of the mucosa stained, regardless of whether they were of benign or malignant tissue origin. The proportion of carcinoma cells reacting with the anti-Haymaker antibody was not significantly different from that of non-malignant epithelial cells from the same patients (p=0.180). The overall proportion of epithelial cells reacting with the antibody in the benign samples was not significantly different from that in malignant samples (p=0.270).
In contrast to the ubiquitous epithelial staining seen across all the various samples examined, few cells in the connective tissue stroma or smooth muscle of these specimens reacted with the anti-25-mer Haymaker antibody (Figure 4 ). Only 17 of the 80 samples had more than 5% of stromal cells staining for Haymaker. Eleven of these cases with significant stromal staining were in normal endometrium, two were in normal myometrium, two were in the stroma of an endometrial carcinoma, and two were in the sarcomatous portion of malignant mixed mullerian tumors. The vast majority of samples showed less than 5% of stromal cells staining. However, there was a trend toward an increase in stromal staining in the benign tissue as compared with the malignant tumors. This was largely due to 11 benign cases in which endometrial stroma showed 675% of cells staining for Haymaker. This trend reached statistical significance among the paired samples [tumor vs normal in same patients (p<0.001)] but did not reach significance on examination of the independent unpaired samples [tumor vs normal in different patients (p=0.181)].
By far the greatest difference in Haymaker expression was observed between epithelial cells and cells of the connective tissue and muscularis (Figure 5 and Figure 6 ). When the different histologic tissue types were pooled and examined with respect to benign versus malignant tissue origin, significant differences between the proportions of benign and malignant epithelial cells of the mucosa that reacted with the anti-Haymaker antibody were not observed (Figure 5). A higher proportion of the epithelial cells expressed Haymaker, as compared with the stromal cells (p<0.001) from the paired gynecological samples with tumor. The epithelial cells also stained with much greater intensity than the stromal cells (p<0.001). Similar findings were seen in the non-malignant samples, where the proportion of epithelial cells staining and the intensity of staining were markedly higher in the epithelium than in the connective tissue or smooth muscle (p=0.004 for proportion of cells and p=0.005 for intensity).
RT-PCR Studies Relative levels of Haymaker gene transcripts were examined in normal and malignant endometrium using highly specific primers for Haymaker (Figures 7A and 7B). The level of ß-actin RT-PCR product was similar in all samples tested, indicating that equivalent amounts of total RNA were used for the gene-specific amplification of Haymaker (Figures 7C and 7D). However, RT-PCR with Haymaker primers of RNA from three of the five normal endometrial samples failed to yield a product (Panel A, Lane 1 and Panel B, Lanes 5 and 6). The other RNA samples from normal patients yielded a moderate amount of amplified product (Panel A, Lane 2 and Panel B, Lane 7). In contrast, all five of the RNA samples from the patients with carcinoma yielded amplified Haymaker-specific product. Grade 2 endometrial adenocarcinoma (Panel B, Lane 1) gave the most intense signal, whereas one of the Grade 3 endometroid adenocarcinomas (Panel A, Lane 4) had the least intense signal. These data suggest that Haymaker transcripts are readily detected in the endometrium of uteri bearing epithelial tumors and to a lesser extent in the endometrium of normal uteri.
In previous studies using Western blot, flow cytometry, and RT-PCR analysis, we demonstrated that Haymaker expression was significantly greater in cell lines established from malignant epithelial and hematopoetic tissues, compared with cell lines derived from non-cancerous connective tissues and from freshly isolated normal lymphocytes (Das et al. 2001
These findings are consistent with our previous observations, in that tumor cell lines of epithelial origin, such as human lung adenocarcinoma (A549), human breast carcinomas (T47-D and MD231), human kidney carcinoma (DU145), and human colorectal carcinoma (COLO), highly expressed Haymaker protein. In contrast, the normal cells and non-malignant cell lines studied previously were not of epithelial origin but rather of lymphoid or connective tissue origin; i.e., peripheral blood lymphocytes, embryonic fibroblast line CCD 27-SK, and fetal lung fibroblast line FHS expressed little Haymaker protein (Das et al. 2001
There are a number of possible explanations for the differential expression of Haymaker protein in epithelial cells compared with connective tissue and muscle cells. One possibility is that Haymaker expression may be related to the rate of cell proliferation. Other markers of cell proliferation, such as Ki-67 antigen and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) (Takasaki et al. 1981
In our initial report, we provided evidence that Haymaker was expressed on the plasma membrane of certain cell lines derived from leukemias but was not expressed on the surface of either normal lymphocytes or malignant cell lines of epithelial origin. Further investigations clearly demonstrated that Haymaker mRNA was abundant not only in the plasma membrane positive cell lines but also in the surface negative tumor-derived epithelial lines. Additional studies revealed that Haymaker protein was highly expressed in all tumor cell lines but not in the non-epithelial cell lines of normal origin. Although some reports have suggested that Haymaker might be localized to mitochondria and may function as the mammalian homolog of yeast TOM40 (Baker et al. 1990
In summary, Haymaker functions in certain leukemia/lymphoma cell lines as a cell surface target molecule for cytolytic action by non-activated natural killer cells (Das et al. 1997
The authors appreciate the financial support of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the Transplant Immunology and Immunogenetics Program, State University of New York Downstate Medical Center.
Received for publication June 21, 2005; accepted February 3, 2006
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