[A biochemical study on neurofilament proteins in soft tissue tumors]

Since the diagnosis of soft tissue tumors is often difficult, neurofilament proteins were analyzed to contribute to the diagnosis for neurogenic tumors. Neurofilaments are composed of three polypeptides which generally are in the range of 200,000, 160,000 and 68,000 daltons; these are components of the axonal flow. Materials of the neurogenic tumors were neurinoma, neurofibroma and malignant schwannoma. Control materials were human sciatic nerve, human blood, desmoid tumor, leiomyoma and lipoma. For biochemical analysis, 10% sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) and two dimensional electrophoresis (sodium dodecyl sulfate PAGE and isoelectric focusing) were used. For the morphological study, H.E. stain, Bodian stain, luxol fast blue stain and electron microscope were employed. In this study, observation of bands of neurofilaments in the neurogenic tumors, the concentrated band of collagen in desmoid tumor and the band of actin in leiomyoma were possible. This method of analysis thus can be used as supplements for differential diagnosis of soft tissue tumors.