Sialyl-Tn(sTn)是肿瘤相关糖抗原的一种,在多种上皮来源的肿瘤组织中都存在sTn的过表达.但是,关于sTn在子宫内膜癌中的表达情况目前研究得很少,而且仅有的报道也互相矛盾.为了阐明这一问题,我们选取了111例临床样本,其中包括82例子宫内膜癌,16例非典型增生内膜,13例正常内膜,利用免疫组化的方法分析了sTn的表达情况.结果表明,sTn在子宫内膜癌中高表达,但仅限于Ⅰ型子宫内膜癌(80%),而在Ⅱ型子宫内膜癌中表达率仅为45%,二者具有显著性差异(P〈0.05).这是我们首次报道sTn特异性与Ⅰ型子宫内膜癌相关,有利于解释过去前后不一的矛盾结果.在非典型组织中,sTn的表达率较正常组织高,分别为31%(正常组织)和44%(非典型组织).这说明sTn参与了子宫内膜癌的发生发展.同时,我们的结果表明,sTn的表达与肿瘤的组织分级具有相关性,其在高、中分化的肿瘤组织中表达率明显高于低分化的肿瘤组织.这预示着sTn可能与子宫内膜癌的良好预后相关.我们的研究为诊断Ⅰ型子宫内膜癌提供了一个新的标记物和诊断试剂,同时提示我们,将来对于子宫内膜癌的研究,有必要对Ⅰ型子宫内膜癌和Ⅱ型子宫内膜癌区别对待.
Sialyl-Tn (sTn) is a tumor-associated carbohydrate antigen overexpressed in many carcinomas. But whether it is expressed in neoplastic human endometrium is controversial. Here we screened 111 clinical samples including 82 endometrial cancers, 16 atypical hyperplastic and 13 normal endometria, by immunohistochemistry using a novel anti-sTn antibody, namely 3P9. Our results showed that the expression of sTn in the endometrial carcinoma was significantly higher (76%) than that in normal tissues (31%) (P 〈 0.01) and in atypical hyperplasia (44%) (P 〈 0.05). Importantly, we found that sTn expression in type I carcinoma (80%) was obviously higher than that in type 11 (45%) (P 〈 0.05). These results suggested that sTn may be a biomarker for endometrial carcinoma, especially for type I carcinoma. Moreover, we observed that sTn expression was increased with the decline of tumor histological grade (P 〈 0.05), indicating that sTn was associated with a favorable prognosis in endometrial carcinoma.