MON-500 Cell Adhesion Molecules mRNA Expression in Thyroid Tumors

Thyroid cancer biology is extremely diverse. While some cases never progress clinically or do so indolently, others evolve aggressively and may even lead to death. Cell adhesion molecules are glycoproteins present in the cell membrane and play an important role in inflammatory and neoplastic diseases by recruiting immune cells to these sites. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of mRNA expression of SELL, ICAM1 and ITGAL in thyroid tumors and their relationship with lymphocyte infiltration. We evaluated by RT-qPCR technique 191 thyroid nodules including 97 benign (79 females, 17 males; 49.8±12.5 years old) and 94 malignant (71 females, 23 males; 48.3±15.5years old) cases. Clinical and pathology data were obtained from 47 goiters; 50 follicular adenomas (FA); 74 papillary thyroid carcinomas (PTC), including: 29 classic papillary thyroid carcinomas (CPTC), 21 follicular variant of PTC (FVPTC), 12oxifilic variant of PTC (OVPTC), 12 tall cell papillary thyroid carcinomas (TCPTC); and 20 follicular thyroid carcinomas (FTC). All patients were managed according to a standard protocol based on current guidelines and followed-up for 78.7±54.2 months. SELL was more expressed in malignant (0.85±1.54 UA) than in benign (0.54±0.71 UA, p=0.0027) nodules. The same occurred with ICAM1 (0.99±1.41 vs. 0.46±0.85, p=0.0001), but not with ITGAL gene expression (1.04±1.63 vs. 0.76±1.21, p=0.2131). In addition, the expression of SELL was different when we compared PTC with FA (0.94±1.62 UA vs. 0.47±0.72 UA, p=0.0018) and FTC with FA (0.82±2.38 UA vs. 0.47±0.72 UA, p=0.0078). ICAM1 expression was lower in goiters (0.46±0.90 UA) when compared with PTC (0.93±1.22 UA, p=0.0030) and FTC (1.03±3.30 UA, p=0.0207). Higher expression of ICAM1 (1.16±3.04 UA vs. 0.52±0.96 UA, p=0.0064) and ITGAL (1.17±1.54 UA vs. 0.49±1.39 UA, p=0.0244) was observed in tumors with lymphocyte infiltrate. Also, ITGAL gene expression was higher in tumors that had distant metastasis at diagnosis (1.53±2.18 UA vs. 0.57±1.10 UA, p=0.0217). We were not able to demonstrate any association between any of the investigated molecules and patients’ outcome. In conclusion, our data suggest that cell adhesion molecules may play an important role in neoplastic thyroid cells proliferation. In addition, our findings show that gene expression of SELL and ICAM1 may assist in the histological characterization of follicular patterned thyroid nodules.