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. 2014 May 4;28(3):508-517.
doi: 10.1080/13102818.2014.909151. Epub 2014 Sep 25.

VEGF expression, microvessel density and dendritic cell decrease in thyroid cancer

Maya Gulubova  1 , Koni Ivanova  1 , Julian Ananiev  1 , Julieta Gerenova  2 , Aleksandar Zdraveski  3 , Hristo Stoyanov  3 , Tatyana Vlaykova  4
Affiliations

VEGF expression, microvessel density and dendritic cell decrease in thyroid cancer

Maya Gulubova et al. Biotechnol Biotechnol Equip. .

Abstract

Thyroid cancer is one of the five most common cancers in the age between 20 and 50 years. Many factors including the potent angiogenic vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and different dendritic cell types are known to be related to thyroid tumourogenesis. The study was performed to address the expression of VEGF and microvessel density in thyroid cancers and to evaluate the effect of VEGF expression in thyroid tumour cells on the dendritic cells. We investigated 65 patients with different types of thyroid carcinomas: papillary (PTC), oncocytic (OTC), follicular (FTC) and anaplastic (ATC), immunohistochemically with antibodies against VEGF, CD1a, CD83, S100 and CD31. Our results suggest that the expression of VEGF is significantly more often in PTC than ATC (92.3% vs. 60.0%, p = 0.025). The microvessel density marked with CD31 in the tumour border of PTC was significantly higher as compared to FTC (p = 0.039), but not to ATC and OTC (p = 0.337 and 0.134). We found that CD1a- and CD83-positive cells were dispersed with variable density and in OC CD31+ vessel numbers were positively correlated with CD83+ dendritic cells in tumour stroma (R = 0.847, p = 0.016). We did not find statistically significant associations of the survival of patients with PTC after the surgical therapy with VEGF expression and MVD. In conclusion we may state that VEGF expression in tumour cells of thyroid cancer can induce neovascularization and suppress dendritic cells.

Keywords: CD31; VEGF; dendritic cell; microvessel density; prognosis; thyroid cancer.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression in thyroid tissue: (a) VEGF-positive immune reaction in follicular cells of papillary thyroid cancer (×100 magnification); (b) VEGF expression in follicular cells of follicular thyroid cancer (×200 magnification); (c) VEGF negative immune reaction in anaplastic thyroid cancer (×200 magnification).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Microvessel density (MVD) in thyroid tissue: (a) CD31-positive vessels in a papillary thyroid cancer (×100 magnification); (b) CD31 staining in blood vessels in anaplastic thyroid cancer (×200 magnification); (c) CD31 staining in blood vessels in follicular thyroid cancer (×200 magnification).
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Blood vessel density in different types of thyroid cancers. Note: PTC, papillary thyroid cancer; FTC, follicular thyroid cancer; ATC, anaplastic thyroid cancer; OTC, oncocytic thyroid cancer. Data are presented as mean ± SD (*p = 0.039).
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Dendritic cells in thyroid tissue: (a) CD1a-positive dendritic cells in papillary thyroid cancer (×200 magnification); (b) CD83-positive dendritic cells in anaplastic thyroid cancer (×200 magnification).
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Correlation between CD1a- and CD83-positive dendritic cells in OTC (oncocytic thyroid cancer).
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Kaplan–Meier survival plot for overall survival (OS) after surgical therapy of patients with PTC according to the microvessel density (MVD) (log-rank test).
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