ABH antigens expression in patients with urothelial tumors

ENSINCK A; LEBENSOHN N; RACCA L; GARCÍA BORRÁS S; COTORRUELO C; BIONDI C

Londres

Congreso; 25th Regional Congress of the International Society of Blood Transfusion; 2015

International Society of Blood Transfusion

Backgraund: The A, B, and H antigens are complex carbohydrate structures foundon glycoproteins and glycolipids present on the surface of erythrocytes, endothelialcells, and on most epithelial cells. These antigens are widely distributed in humantissues and undergo changes in expression during cellular differentiation and alignant development. Studies of associations between various cancers and the ABOblood groups have shown elevated relative risks for some categories of disease.Aim: To investigate the expression of ABH antigens in tissue samples from patientswith urogenital tumors. Methods: 72 patients with urogenital tumors were examined. Appropriate informed consent was obtained from all subjects and all procedures were performed according to the ethical standards established by the University of Rosario. All biopsies were fixed in buffered formaldehyde, paraffin embedded, and stained with hematoxilyn and eosin. Specific red cell adherence test was performed on paraffin sections to detect the intensity of isoantigens A, B and H on the epithelial cell surface by a three layer sandwich technique. Anti A, Anti B, antisera and Ulex europaeus lectin (Anti H) were used. 2?5% isologous indicator RBC?s suspension were added to the sections and incubated for 30 min. The slides were inverted over a support in a petridish containing Tris buffered saline such that the undersurface of the slide just touched the solution, and kept for 5 min to settle unreacted RBCs down. The slides were observed under low power magnification and photographed immediately. Normal tissues containing blood group antigens, endothelium of blood vessels and RBCs acted as inbuilt positive controls, and adipose tissues acted as inbuilt negative controls. In the present study the isoantigenicity of the epithelium was graded according to degree of adherence of indicator RBCs as strongly positive adherence (++++) to negative adherence (). Results: The immunoadherence reaction to tissue sections using antibodies and red blood cells showed a loss of A, B or H antigens related to the stage of tumor. A loss of ABH reactivity within the most invasive sites of the tumors correlated significantly with the stage of tumor development and histological grade of malignancy. In the tissue sections studied, the endothelium of blood vessels was reactive with the erythrocytes (positive control), and adipose tissues did not react with the red blood cells (negative controls). Conclusions: In the present work, therefore, we used the loss of the expression of ABH antigens as a marker of differentiation. As the expression of these antigens can be detected by monoclonal antibodies, they are a better objective marker of differentiation than the more commonly used subjective histologic assessment. The presence or absence of blood group antigens has been used to predict the clinical course of patients with superficial transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder. It is generally accepted that tumors are composed of heterogeneous cell populations with different biological behaviors. To obtain optimal prognostic information about the tumor, therefore, the entire tumor cell population should be studied. It was possible to showthat loss of ABH antigens was associated with the spread of tumor.