Expression of androgen receptors in skin appendage tumors: an immunohistochemical study

Androgen receptor (AR) expression was examined in normal skin and in 52 cases of various skin appendage tumors using a monoclonal antibody (F39.4.1) raised against the N-terminal domain of human AR. Microwave oven heating in citrate buffer solution followed by immunostaining with the labeled streptavidin biotin (LSAB) method was applied to formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded sections. Immunoreactive AR was restricted to the nuclei. In normal skin, AR was consistently localized in seboblasts and in some differentiated sebocytes, and variable expression was seen in luminal epithelial cells of eccrine and apocrine glands in the secretory portion. Hair follicles and epidermis showed no reactivity. In sweat gland tumors, AR was identified focally in inner layer cells of the tubuloglandular component of ten of thirteen chondroid syringomas but the remaining tumors were nonreactive. In sebaceous gland tumors, benign tumors with mature sebaceous elements (sebaceous nevi and sebaceous adenomas) showed AR expression, but the sebaceous epitheliomas and sebaceous carcinomas lost their expression. No AR expression was observed in hair follicle tumors, except in AR-positive mature sebaceous glands incorporated into the cyst wall of steatocystomas.