Clinical significance of putative cancer stem cell markers CD44 and CD133 in prostate carcinomas

Introduction: Based on valuable role of putative cancer stem cell markers CD44 and CD133 to identify the potential prostate CSCs and controversial expression level of putative cancer stem cell markers CD44 and CD133 in prostate tumors, current study was conducted to evaluate the co-expression level and clinical correlation of these markers in a series of Iranian prostate tissues. Method: 155 prostate tissues composed of prostate cancer (PCa), high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (HGPIN), and benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) which were included in Tissue microarray (TMA) have been immunohistochemicaly examined for the expression of CD44 and CD133. The correlation of both CSC markers expression with clinicopathological parameters was also assessed. Results: The positive expression of CD44 and CD133 was observed in 60.3% and 46.2% of PCa specimens, respectively. The higher level of CD44 expression was more often seen in PCa cases with low Gleason score and TNM stage (P = 0.025 and P= 0.086), while there was no significant correlation between CD133 expression and clinicopathological parameters. In parallel, the co-expression of CD44 and CD133 (CD44+/CD133+ phenotype) was significantly displayed in PCa cases with low to moderate Gleason score (P=0.046). Conclusion: These findings suggest that Immunohistochemical analysis of CD44 and CD133 expression was in parallel with combined analysis, which demonstrated that CD133 may not be a suitable cancer stem cell marker in PCa, while its co expression with CD44 could be correlated with Gleason score of PCas

Clinical significance of putative cancer stem cell markers CD44 and CD133 in prostate carcinomas Keywords:

Prostate cancer , Tissue microarray , Immunohistochemistry , CD44 , CD133