Endosialin is expressed in high grade and advanced sarcomas: evidence from clinical specimens and preclinical modeling.

We previously surveyed the expression of endosialin/ CD248/TEM-1 by immunohistochemistry in human clinical specimens of sarcomas and documented expression in tumor cells, stromal cells and vasculature. In the present study, we completed a retrospective analysis of the diagnostic reports available for these same samples in order to identify high-grade and metastatic disease. Our results show that endosialin can be detected in advanced disease. We screened human sarcoma cell lines in vitro for endosialin expression and developed preclinical human xenograft models of disseminated sarcoma. We found that 22 out of 42 human sarcoma cell lines were positive for endosialin with a positive correlation between mRNA and protein levels. When implanted in vivo, endosialin was expressed at all sites of dissemination. These data provide clinical and preclinical evidence that endosialin can be detected in advanced sarcoma. These results demonstrate for the first time that endosialin is a suitable therapeutic target for poor prognosis and advanced disease.