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Author Spotlight: Enhancing Multicolor Fluorescence Localization in Lung Carcinoma Sample
Published on: November 21, 2023
Detection of ALK protein expression in lung squamous cell carcinomas by immunohistochemistry
Jiandong Wang1, Qin Shen1, Qunli Shi2
1Department of Pathology, Jinling Hospital, Nanjing University School of Medicine, Nanjing, 210002, China. jd_wang@outlook.com.
Background:
The echinoderm microtubule-associated protein-like 4 (EML4) gene and the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene rearrangements occur in approximately 5% of lung adenocarcimomas (ACA), leading to ALK overexpression and predicting response to targeted therapy. To the present, few studies have been focused on the expression of ALK protein in lung squamous cell carcinomas (SqCC). Only several cases of lung SqCC were reported expression of ALK protein. No clinical study has been published to explicit the relationship between ALK expression and the response to targeted therapy in SqCC.
Methods:
In this study, we analyzed ALK protein expression with a specific rabbit monoclonal Ig antibody (D5F3 clone) in 207 cases of lung SqCC. The positive cases were confirmed with ALK fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and RT-PCR.
Results:
We found that 3 out of 207 (1.4%) cases of lung SqCC were ALK positive detected by IHC staining, which were confirmed by ALK FISH and RT-PCR.
Conclusions:
Our results indicate that ALK protein expression is not a rare molecular event in SqCC. Although the frequency of EML4-ALK rearrangements is lower in lung SqCC than that in lung adenocarcinomas, their presence may provide additional treatment options in lung SqCC. The response of SqCC patients with ALK expression to target therapy of crizotinib should be explored.
