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A broad survey of cathepsin K immunoreactivity in human neoplasms.

American journal of clinical pathology (2013-01-29)
Gang Zheng, Guido Martignoni, Cristina Antonescu, Elizabeth Montgomery, Charles Eberhart, George Netto, Janis Taube, William Westra, Jonathan I Epstein, Tamara Lotan, Anirban Maitra, Edward Gabrielson, Michael Torbenson, Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue, Angelo Demarzo, Ie Ming Shih, Peter Illei, T C Wu, Pedram Argani
ABSTRACT

Cathepsin K is consistently and diffusely expressed in alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS) and a subset of translocation renal cell carcinomas (RCCs). However, cathepsin K expression in human neoplasms has not been systematically analyzed. We constructed tissue microarrays (TMA) from a wide variety of human neoplasms, and performed cathepsin K immunohistochemistry (IHC). Only 2.7% of 1,140 carcinomas from various sites exhibited cathepsin K labeling, thus suggesting that among carcinomas, cathepsin K labeling is highly specific for translocation RCC. In contrast to carcinomas, cathepsin K labeling was relatively common (54.6%) in the 414 mesenchymal lesions studied, including granular cell tumor, melanoma, and histiocytic lesions, but not paraganglioma, all of which are in the morphologic differential diagnosis of ASPS. Cathepsin K IHC can be helpful in distinguishing ASPS and translocation RCC from some but not all of the lesions in their differential diagnosis.

MATERIALS
Product Number
Brand
Product Description

Sigma-Aldrich
Cathepsin K (3F9) Mouse Monoclonal Antibody