Evidence for angiogenesis-independent contribution of VEGFR1 (FLT1) in gastric cancer recurrence

• Published in: Medical oncology (Northwood, London, England) Vol. 30; no. 3; p. 644
• Main Authors: Suspitsin, Evgeny N., Kashyap, Aniruddh, Shelekhova, Kseniya V., Sokolenko, Anna P., Kuligina, Ekatherina Sh, Iyevleva, Aglaya G., Kornilov, Alexandr V., Ehemann, Volker, Yanus, Grigoriy A., Aleksakhina, Svetlana N., Preobrazhenskaya, Elena V., Zaitseva, Olga A., Yatsuk, Olga S., Klimashevsky, Valeriy F., Togo, Alexandr V., Imyanitov, Evgeny N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston Springer US 01-09-2013; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Hematology; Humans; Internal Medicine; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Microvessels - pathology; Middle Aged; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local - genetics; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local - pathology; Neovascularization, Pathologic - genetics; Neovascularization, Pathologic - pathology; Oncology; Pathology; RNA, Messenger - genetics; Short Communication; Stomach Neoplasms - genetics; Stomach Neoplasms - pathology; Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A - genetics; Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor-1 - genetics; Prognostic markers; Tumor angiogenesis; Gastric cancer
• ISSN: 1357-0560; 1559-131X
• DOI: 10.1007/s12032-013-0644-2

Angiogenesis plays an important role in cancer progression and involves activation of multiple signaling cascades. This study investigated the relationships between microvessel density, expression of
VEGF
and
VEGFR1
(
FLT1
), and gastric cancer (GC) recurrence. Twenty-nine surgically treated GC cases with similar initial clinical presentation were selected for the study; 11 of these cases recurred within 3 years, while the remaining 18 did not. Microvessel density correlated with
VEGF
mRNA content, but neither of these parameters was associated with the disease outcome. When tumors were ranked according to the level of expression of angiogenic molecules, 9 out of 10 cases with the highest
VEGFR1
expression belonged to the recurrence group, while none of the 10 GC with the lowest content of
VEGFR1
mRNA had the disease relapse (
p
 = 0.000).
VEGFR1
expression did not show even a trend to correlation with the level of cancer tissue vascularization. Immunofluorescent staining by anti-VEGFR1 antibody revealed VEGFR1 expression in tumor cells but not in other cell types. Our data provide indirect support to the evidence for a non-angiogenic contribution of
VEGFR1
in cancer pathogenesis.