Antibodies to intermediate filaments in surgical pathology

Most mammalian nucleated cells contain a cytoplasmic fibril system called intermediate filaments. Unlike other cytoskeletal proteins, the subunit proteins of intermediate filaments show a remarkable cell-type-specificity in their expression: mesenchymal, muscle, epithelial, glial and neuronal cells containing each their cell type specific filaments. In this review we discuss the possibilities to use antibodies to these filaments in the diagnosis and histogenetic analysis of human tumors. This approach is based on findings which indicate that these filaments retain their cell-type specific expression also in tumors.