Serum and tissue expression of neuropilin 1 in precancerous and malignant vocal fold lesions

Abstract

Objectives: The study was designed to evaluate the tissue expression of NRP-1 and serum level of sNRP-1 in the same patients with intraepithelial laryngeal lesions or early staged laryngeal cancer to identify the clinical significance of these biomarkers in the diagnosis of laryngeal lesions.

Material and methods: A prospective analysis of tissue was performed on specimens and blood samples from 49 patients, who were admitted for surgical resection due to suspicious vocal fold lesions and were diagnosed as non-dysplasia, low-grade dysplasia, high-grade dysplasia and invasive cancers.

Results: ELISA was conducted on 48 blood samples. The minimum level of sNRP-1 was 0.15 ng/ml and maximum- 37.71 ng/ml. The Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance revealed no differences in sNRP-1 levels between different histopathological stages of vocal fold lesions (p = 0.234). IHC was conducted in 49 tissue samples. The evaluated mean scores of NRP-1 tissue expression were compared to histopathological stage of the lesion. The Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance revealed no differences in NRP-1 tissue expression between different histopathological stages of vocal fold lesions (p = 0.536). The correlation of tissue NRP-1 expression and serum levels of NRP-1 within analyzed group was insignificant. The Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was 0.076 (p = 0.606).

Conclusions: The NRP-1 tissue expression and serum levels are unlikely to be a prognostic factor for identification of laryngeal dysplasia or early stage laryngeal cancer. Further studies investigating biomolecules involved in laryngeal carcinogenesis are necessary.

Fig 1

The categories of the expression of NRP-1 immunostaining in the intraepithelial vocal fold lesions at x100 magnification: A. weakly positive expression, B. moderately positive expression, C. strong expression.

Fig 2

Graphical presentations of Elisa results in the study group with the bar graph of mean sNRP-1 levels including error bars (A) and with the 2-D dot plot (B).

Fig 3

Graphical presentations of immunohistochemistry results of NRP-1 tissue expression in the vocal folds lesions with a bar graph of mean scores including error bars (A) and with a 2-D dot plot (B).