Nuclear matrix proteins and their potential applications to diagnostic pathology.

The nuclear matrix is the nonchromatin scaffolding of the cell nucleus that confers nuclear shape, organizes the nuclear chromatin, and regulates many important intranuclear biochemical events. Although our understanding of the nuclear matrix and its proteins is still evolving, it is clear that nuclear matrix proteins (NMPs) hold considerable promise as diagnostic tools for pathologists. Early evidence suggests that NMPs may be useful biomarkers of neoplastic disease in serum, body fluids, and tissues. NMPs are also potential candidates for use as tumor prognostic factors and targets of anticancer drugs. Moreover, NMPs may hold the key to understanding important cellular events, such as neoplastic transformation, steroid hormone binding, and apoptosis. Despite impressive gains made by cellular biologists and biochemists toward understanding the structure and function of the nuclear matrix, many of the potential applications of NMPs to diagnostic pathology are largely unexplored. Thus, NMPs should prove an exciting and fruitful area of investigation for experimental and clinical pathologists who are interested in developing diagnostic tests for detecting, quantitating, and characterizing these proteins in human tissues and body fluids and translating these applications into the clinical pathology laboratory.