Originally published as JHC exPRESS on December 10, 2007. doi:10.1369/jhc.7A7362.2007
Volume 56 (3): 305-312, 2008 Copyright ©The Histochemical Society, Inc. p53 Nuclear Accumulation and Bcl-2 Expression in Contiguous Adenomatous Components of Colorectal Adenocarcinomas Predict Aggressive Tumor Behavior
Department of Pathology, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama (CS,VRK,NCJ,WEG,GPS,UM), and The UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center, Birmingham, Alabama (WEG,GPS,UM) Correspondence to: Dr. Upender Manne, Associate Professor, Department of Pathology, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, 515B1-Kracke Building 619, 19th Street South, Birmingham, AL, 35294-7331. E-mail: manne{at}path.uab.edu
For subsets of colorectal adenocarcinoma (CRC) patients, nuclear accumulation of p53 (p53nac) and Bcl-2 expression are prognostic indicators. To understand their role in the progression of CRC we evaluated 90 CRCs and their contiguous adenomatous components (CAdCs) for immunohistochemical expression of these markers. In general, p53nac and Bcl-2 expression was significantly increased when comparing normal colonic epithelia to CAdCs and CRCs. Thirteen (14%) CAdCs that demonstrated p53nac continued to express p53nac in their contiguous CRCs. A similar trend was observed in Bcl-2 expression in that the majority of CAdCs expressing Bcl-2 continued to express it in their matching CRCs (39/44). Patients whose CAdCs and their contiguous CRCs demonstrate p53nac had shorter median survival (35.9 months) than those patients whose CAdCs and CRCs did not (80.56 months). However, patients whose CAdCs had p53nac and lacked Bcl-2 expression had the lowest median survival (15.74 months) when compared with patients whose CAdCs did not demonstrate p53nac but had increased expression of Bcl-2 (71.77 months). These findings suggest that in those adenomas that demonstrate p53nac but lack Bcl-2 expression, their contiguous CRCs are more likely to be aggressive as they progress. (J Histochem Cytochem 56:305–312, 2008)
Key Words: colorectal neoplasia adenomatous component p53 nuclear accumulation Bcl-2 expression
DEVELOPMENT OF colorectal adenocarcinoma (CRC) principally occurs via the adenoma–carcinoma sequence, a multistep process of tumor progression (Vogelstein et al. 1988
Some of the genes known to be involved in CRC progression from an adenoma to CRC are APC, β-catenin, K-ras, c-myc, SMAD4, and p53. Of these, p53 mutations (alterations) have been proposed to occur as late carcinogenic events. The wild-type p53 induces apoptosis in response to irreversible DNA damage and to an oncogenic stimulus (Efeyan et al. 2006
Alterations in p53 and Bcl-2 were reported in early stages of CRC development (van den Berg et al. 1989
Patients and Tissues The institutional review boards of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Hospital approved this study. We identified a total of 620 CRC patients from the UAB Hospital who had undergone surgical resection for first primary CRC from 1981 through 1993. We obtained the medical records including surgical pathology reports of these patients, which were reviewed by two of the gastrointestinal (GI) pathologists (CS, NCJ) to ascertain key information. During our initial selection process, those patients who died within a week of their surgery; those who had inflammatory bowel disease; those patients whose archival tissues were not available; those patients with surgical margin involvement, unspecified tumor location, multiple primaries within the colorectum, or multiple malignancies; or those patients with family or personal history of CRC were all excluded from the study population. However, based on the information in patients' charts, it may have been difficult to identify the familial vs. sporadic nature of the tumors; therefore, our patient populations can be described as consecutive populations of CRC patients. To control for treatment bias, we included only those patients who underwent surgery as a therapeutic intervention and excluded patients who received any pre- or postsurgical therapies. Because the use of adjuvant chemotherapy was not widespread during the time frame of this study (1981–1993), we were able to obtain a large number of CRC patients who had not received adjuvant therapy. Only 90/620 cases had CRCs with contiguous adenomatous components. We obtained formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded archival tissue blocks of these cases from the files of The UAB–Surgical Pathology Department.
In our study, two GI pathologists (CS, NCJ) reviewed hematoxylin- and eosin-stained slides of all cases to determine the histomorphological type (tubular, tubulovillous, and villous) and the degree of dysplasia of the CAdCs (Hamilton and Aaltonen 2000 Patients were followed by The UAB tumor registry until their death or the date of the last documented contact within the study time frame. The tumor registries ascertain outcome (mortality) information directly from patients (or living relatives) and from the physicians of the patients through telephone and mail contacts. This information is further validated against State Death Lists. Tumor registries update follow-up information every 6 months, and follow-up of our cohort ended in April 2007.
Immunohistochemical Analysis Secondary detection was accomplished using a multispecies detection system (Signet Laboratories; Dedham, MA). Sections were exposed to biotinylated multispecies antibodies including anti-mouse antibodies for 20 min and then incubated with peroxidase-labeled streptavidin for 20 min. A diaminobenzidine tetrachloride supersensitive substrate kit (BioGenex) was used to visualize the antibody–antigen complex. Each section was then counterstained using hematoxylin, dehydrated using graded alcohols, and soaked in xylene before coverslipping.
The staining evaluation strategy of p53nac and Bcl-2 expression was described in our earlier studies (Manne et al. 1997
A semiquantitative immunostaining score (ISS) for Bcl-2 was obtained as described previously (Manne et al. 1997
Mean age of patients at the time of surgical resection was 66.5 years (range, 35–86 years). Based on the histopathological features, there were 53 tubular, 14 tubulovillous, and 23 villous types of CAdCs in this study. Further analysis of these histological types based on the degree of dysplasia revealed that 13/53 tubular, 2/14 tubulovillous, and 2/23 villous types were classified as CAdCs with high-grade dysplasia. Phenotypic expression patterns of p53nac and Bcl-2 are shown in Figure 1 . None of the adjacent normal epithelial mucosa was positive for p53nac, but Bcl-2 expression was observed in the basal crypts. In the CAdCs and CRCs, p53nac was localized to the nucleus and Bcl-2 to the cytoplasm. Tubular CAdCs (6/53, 11%) were less positive for p53nac than tubulovillous (3/14, 21%) and villous CAdCs (4/23, 17%), regardless of degree of dysplasia.
Expression levels of these two makers significantly increased as one moved from adjacent normal-appearing epithelium to CAdC to CRC (Figure 2 ). Clinicopathological features and expression profiles of p53nac and Bcl-2 of 90 CRCs and their CAdCs are given in Table 1 . p53nac was observed in 13/90 (14%) CAdCs as compared with 35/90 (39%) of CRCs (Table 1). It is interesting to note that all CAdCs with p53nac also exhibited p53nac in their corresponding CRCs.
Increased cytoplasmic expression of Bcl-2 was observed in 44/90 (49%) CAdCs and in 62/90 (69%) CRCs (Table 1). Of 44 Bcl-2-expressing CAdCs, 39 (89%) showed Bcl-2 positivity in their corresponding CRCs. Only 5/90 (5.5%) cases showed loss of Bcl-2 expression in the CRCs with respect to their corresponding contiguous CAdCs, and all these cases were associated with increased expression of p53nac (data not shown). Individual and/or concomitant expression of Bcl-2 and p53nac did not show significant correlations with any of the prognostic features of CAdCs like grade of dysplasia, histological subtype, and extent of adenomatous component as well as the stage of their corresponding CRCs, suggesting that expression of both these markers are not dependent on these aggressive tumor features (data not shown).
Table 2
shows patient characteristics and their correlation with possible combinations of p53nac and Bcl-2 expression in CAdCs and in their corresponding CRCs. These correlation analyses suggested that the poor prognostic combination, p53nac positive plus Bcl-2 negative, was predominantly observed in patients with stage III tumor; however, this association was not statistically significant. However, there was a significant association between the proximal colon site and this poor prognostic combination of p53nac and Bcl-2 expression (
Median survival of patients with p53nac in both CAdCs and their corresponding CRCs was markedly lower (35.9 months) than those patients whose CAdCs were negative but their CRCs were positive for p53nac (74.51 months) or to those patients without p53nac in both CAdCs and CRCs (80.56 months) (Table 3 ). Bcl-2 expression in these lesions did not show such a significant difference in their median survivals (Table 3); however, when the concomitant expression of p53nac and Bcl-2 was considered, patients whose CAdCs were positive for p53nac and lacked Bcl-2 expression had the lowest median survival (15.74 months) when compared with patients whose CAdCs did not demonstrate p53nac but had increased expression of Bcl-2 (71.77 months) (Table 3). A similar trend in survival was observed in patients whose CRCs were categorized based on these two markers (50.89 vs 77.64 months) (Table 3).
Our study demonstrated that the phenotypic expression levels of p53nac and Bcl-2 significantly increased in the transition from adjacent normal-appearing epithelia to contiguous CAdCs to CRCs. CAdCs that demonstrated p53nac continued to express p53nac in their contiguous CRCs, and a similar pattern was observed for Bcl-2 in that reversal of phenotypes of p53nac or Bcl-2 expression was rare. Also, even though an abnormality in p53 is considered a late event, p53nac was present in 14% of CAdCs. A shorter survival period was observed in patients in whom their CAdCs and their contiguous CRCs exhibited p53nac as compared with those patients with CAdCs negative and CRCs positive for p53nac or with patients whose CAdCs and CRCs did not demonstrate p53nac. When CAdCs were immunoreactive for p53nac but lacked Bcl-2 expression, patients' tumors were more aggressive than those CAdCs that lacked p53nac and increased Bcl-2 expression. These results suggest that once p53nac has been detected and Bcl-2 is downregulated in an adenoma, its contiguous CRC behaves aggressively.
Coexistence of CAdCs in juxtaposition to CRCs supports the now well-accepted hypothesis that a subgroup of adenocarcinomas do develop from adenomas. However, only a small proportion of all adenomas progress to become invasive carcinomas (Burgart 2002
The majority of studies in CRC have demonstrated that abnormal p53, detected by IHC, is a marker of poor patient survival; however, some studies found that p53nac has limited value in predicting clinical outcome (as reviewed in Grewal et al. 1995
Expression of Bcl-2 in CRC has been shown to be a favorable prognostic marker in several studies (Ofner et al. 1995 We conclude that the phenotypic expression of p53 and Bcl-2 progressively increased from adjacent normal-appearing epithelium to CAdC to invasive CRC. The presence of p53nac in the CAdC is an indicator of aggressive behavior of colonic lesions, and these patients are more likely to develop aggressive invasive cancer. Although the additional prognostic pathological features including tumor budding, host responses (e.g., Crohn-like reaction), extramural invasion, vascular invasion, etc. will significantly influence the clinical outcome, evaluation of a combination of p53 and Bcl-2 expression in CAdCs correlates with patient survival. Therefore, it is of great value to assess the adenomas for the phenotypic expression of these markers, which may aid in patient follow-up and surveillance. Furthermore, these findings may lead to the development of new tools for cancer prevention.
This work is supported by the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute (Grant RO1-CA-98932-01) and the Early Detection Research Network (Grant U24-CA-086359). We thank Harpreet Singh, MD, for assistance in database creation and data processing. We thank the Tissue Procurement Facility of The UAB–Comprehensive Cancer Center for histological services.
Received for publication October 9, 2007; accepted November 20, 2007
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