Roles of intrinsic angiogenesis inhibitor, vasohibin, in cervical carcinomas.

The aim of the present study is to clarify the critical roles of vasohibin in cervical carcinomas. We investigated the expression ratios of vasohibin and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptor-2 on endothelium and microvessel density, lymphatic vessel density (LVD) by immunohistochemistry. Sixty-one squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), 18 mucinous adenocarcinoma (Adenocarcinoma), 38 carcinoma in situ (CIS), and 35 normal cervical epithelium were collected. We investigated the expression of vasohibin and compared it with the expression of VEGF receptor-2 (VEGFR-2, KDR/flk-1), and CD34 in the stromal endothelium. Expression of VEGF was counted using the histological score (H score). D2-40 was used as a marker for lymphatic endothelial cells to investigate LVD. The microvessel density of the normal cervical epithelium was significantly lower than that of CIS, SCC, and Adenocarcinoma (P < 0.05). The expression ratio of vasohibin in the normal cervical epithelium was significantly lower than that of SCC and Adenocarcinoma (P < 0.05). The expression ratio of VEGFR-2 of the normal cervical epithelium was significantly lower than that of SCC and Adenocarcinoma (P < 0.05). The LVD of the normal cervical epithelium was significantly lower than that of CIS, SCC, and Adenocarcinoma (P < 0.05). For normal cervical epithelium, CIS, and SCC, there was a moderate correlation between the expression percentage of vasohibin and the expression percentage of VEGFR-2 (P < 0.05, r(2) = 0.3018). This is the first study to elucidate the correlation between the expression of vasohibin in the stromal endothelial cells and the expression of VEGFR-2 in human cervical carcinomas.