TY  - JOUR
A1  - Altieri, Barbara
A1  - Sbiera, Silviu
A1  - Della Casa, Silvia
A1  - Weigand, Isabel
A1  - Wild, Vanessa
A1  - Steinhauer, Sonja
A1  - Fadda, Guido
A1  - Kocot, Arkadius
A1  - Bekteshi, Michaela
A1  - Mambretti, Egle M.
A1  - Rosenwald, Andreas
A1  - Pontecorvi, Alfredo
A1  - Fassnacht, Martin
A1  - Ronchi, Cristina L.
T1  - Livin/BIRC7 expression as malignancy marker in adrenocortical tumors
JF  - Oncotarget
N2  - Livin/BIRC7 is a member of the inhibitors of apoptosis proteins family, which are involved in tumor development through the inhibition of caspases. Aim was to investigate the expression of livin and other members of its pathway in adrenocortical tumors and in the adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) cell line NCI-H295R.
The mRNA expression of livin, its isoforms α and β, XIAP, CASP3 and DIABLO was evaluated by qRT-PCR in 82 fresh-frozen adrenal tissues (34 ACC, 25 adenomas = ACA, 23 normal adrenal glands = NAG). Livin protein expression was assessed by immunohistochemistry in 270 paraffin-embedded tissues (192 ACC, 58 ACA, 20 NAG). Livin, CASP3 and cleaved caspase-3 were evaluated in NCI-H295R after induction of livin overexpression.
Relative livin mRNA expression was significantly higher in ACC than in ACA and NAG (0.060 ± 0.116 vs 0.004 ± 0.014 and 0.002 ± 0.009, respectively, p < 0.01), being consistently higher in tumors than in adjacent NAG and isoform β more expressed than α. No significant differences in CASP3, XIAP and DIABLO levels were found among these groups. In immunohistochemistry, livin was localized in both cytoplasm and nuclei. The ratio between cytoplasmic and nuclear staining was significantly higher in ACC (1.51 ± 0.66) than in ACA (0.80 ± 0.35) and NAG (0.88 ± 0.27; p < 0.0001). No significant correlations were observed between livin expression and histopathological parameters or clinical outcome. In NCI-H295R cells, the livin overexpression slightly reduced the activation of CASP3, but did not correlate with cell viability.
In conclusion, livin is specifically over-expressed in ACC, suggesting that it might be involved in adrenocortical tumorigenesis and represent a new molecular marker of malignancy.
KW  - cancer
KW  - livin
KW  - BIRC7
KW  - adrenocortical cancer
KW  - adrenal tumor
KW  - caspase-3
Y1  - 2017
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-171887
VL  - 8
IS  - 6
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Weigand, Isabel
A1  - Ronchi, Cristina L.
A1  - Rizk-Rabin, Marthe
A1  - Dalmazi, Guido Di
A1  - Wild, Vanessa
A1  - Bathon, Kerstin
A1  - Rubin, Beatrice
A1  - Calebiro, Davide
A1  - Beuschlein, Felix
A1  - Bertherat, Jérôme
A1  - Fassnacht, Martin
A1  - Sbiera, Silviu
T1  - Differential expression of the protein kinase A subunits in normal adrenal glands and adrenocortical adenomas
JF  - Scientific Reports
N2  - Somatic mutations in protein kinase A catalytic α subunit (PRKACA) were found to be causative for 30-40% of cortisol-producing adenomas (CPA) of the adrenal gland, rendering PKA signalling constitutively active. In its resting state, PKA is a stable and inactive heterotetramer, consisting of two catalytic and two regulatory subunits with the latter inhibiting PKA activity. The human genome encodes three different PKA catalytic subunits and four different regulatory subunits that are preferentially expressed in different organs. In normal adrenal glands all regulatory subunits are expressed, while CPA exhibit reduced protein levels of the regulatory subunit IIβ. In this study, we linked for the first time the loss of RIIβ protein levels to the PRKACA mutation status and found the down-regulation of RIIβ to arise post-transcriptionally. We further found the PKA subunit expression pattern of different tumours is also present in the zones of the normal adrenal cortex and demonstrate that the different PKA subunits have a differential expression pattern in each zone of the normal adrenal gland, indicating potential specific roles of these subunits in the regulation of different hormones secretion.
KW  - kinases
KW  - immunohistochemistry
Y1  - 2017
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-157952
VL  - 7
IS  - 49
ER  -