VIMENTIN EXPRESSION IN CERVICAL CARCINOMAS - ASSOCIATION WITH INVASIVE AND MIGRATORY POTENTIAL

Vimentin is an intermediate filament protein normally expressed in mes enchymal cells, but evidence is accumulating in the literature which s uggests that the aberrant expression of vimentin in epithelial cancer cells might be related to local invasiveness and metastatic potential. Vimentin expression has previously been associated with invasive prop erties in an in vitro model consisting of a set of HPV-33-transformed cervical keratinocyte cell lines.(1,2) In the present study, in order to emphasize those in vitro findings, the expression of vimentin has b een investigated in cervical neoplasms of different grades, using immu nohistochemistry. A clear association is reported between vimentin exp ression and metastatic progression, since vimentin was detected in all invasive carcinomas and lymph node metastases, but not in CIN III les ions. These in vivo results are compared with present and previous dat a obtained in vitro on cervical keratinocyte cell lines, where vimenti n expression also correlated with in vitro invasiveness.