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Stage-Specific Embryonic Antigen-1 (SSEA-1) Expression in Thyroid Tissues

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Abstract

Stage-specific embryonic antigen-1 (SSEA-1), also known as CD15, is a member of a cluster of differentiation antigens that have been identified in various normal tissues and in different types of cancers including papillary and medullary thyroid carcinoma. SSEA-1 may be expressed in normal stem cells and cancer stem-like cells. To evaluate the potential diagnostic and prognostic utility of SSEA-1 in thyroid tumors, we analyzed the expression of SSEA-1 in normal and neoplastic thyroid tissues by immunohistochemistry (IHC) using a tissue microarray with 158 different tissue cores. To evaluate the potential utility of SSEA-1 as a surface marker, we also assessed the expression of SSEA-1 in thyroid cell lines by flow cytometric analysis. SSEA-1 immunoreactivity was identified in malignant thyroid follicular epithelial cancers but not in the benign thyroid tissues. Anaplastic thyroid (ATC) (80 %) and conventional papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) (60.7 %) showed significantly higher percentage of cases that were SSEA-1 immunoreactive than follicular variant of papillary thyroid carcinoma (FVPTC) (20.6 %) and follicular carcinoma (FCA) (32.1 %). Flow cytometric analysis of cultured thyroid cell lines showed that a small subpopulation of ATC and PTC thyroid tumor cells had SSEA-1 immunoreactivity which may represent thyroid cancer stem-like cells. The ATC cells expressed more SSEA-1 immunoreactive cells than the PTC cell lines. Our findings suggest that expression of SSEA-1 immunoreactivity in thyroid neoplasms was associated with more aggressive thyroid carcinomas. SSEA-1 is a marker that detects malignant thyroid neoplasms in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded thyroid tissue sections and may be a useful marker for thyroid cancer stem-like cells.

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Acknowledgments

We kindly thank Dr. John A. Copland III (Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL) for the THJ-16T and THJ-21T cell lines, Dr. Rebecca E. Schweppe (University of Colorado, Denver, CO) for the BCPAP cell line, Dr. Daniel T. Ruan (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA) for the TPC-1 cell line, and the staffs of the Translational Research in Pathology (TRIP), Flow Cytometry, 3P, and Experimental Pathology laboratories (University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center Cancer Center Support Grant P30 CA014520) for their services.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI, 53792, USA

    Jin Xu, Heather Hardin, Ranran Zhang, Kaitlin Sundling, Darya Buehler & Ricardo V. Lloyd

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  1. Jin Xu
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  2. Heather Hardin
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  3. Ranran Zhang
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  4. Kaitlin Sundling
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  5. Darya Buehler
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  6. Ricardo V. Lloyd
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Correspondence to Ricardo V. Lloyd.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Presented as a Poster Session at the 105th Meeting of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology in Seattle WA, 2016.

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Xu, J., Hardin, H., Zhang, R. et al. Stage-Specific Embryonic Antigen-1 (SSEA-1) Expression in Thyroid Tissues. Endocr Pathol 27, 271–275 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12022-016-9448-1

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