Expression of AGR2 in pituitary adenomas and its association with tumor aggressiveness.

The aim of hehe ppresentresent sstudytudy wwasas to study the expresxpres- sion of anterior gradient 2 (AGR2) to determine its clini cal significance in pituitary adenoma (PA), and to evaluate the potentia l effe ct of AGR2 on the dia gnosis, therapy or pro gnosis of PA. Immunohistochemistry was performed to detect the expression of AGR2 in 117 PA tissue samples. Western blotting was performed to confirm the expression profile of AGR2 in different subtypes of PAs. The data showed that in 117 different histological subtypes of PA, 51.3% exhibited AGR2-positive expression. Although AGR2 expression occurred more frequently in PAs secreting growth hormone (GH; 62.5%), adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH; 80.0%) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH; 75.0%),the positive expression rate of AGR2 showed no statistically significant differences between PA subtypes (P>0.05). The association between AGR2 expression and clini cal parameters was ana lyzed usin g a 2 test, or Fisher 's exa ct pro bability test when appropriate. The result showed that the aggressiveness of PA was significantly associated with AGR2 expression, and that in the majority of aggressive PAs, AGR2 was negative (P<0.001). In conclusion, the current study detected the expression of AGR2 in different subtypes of PAs for the first time. The data indicated that GH-, ACTH- and FSH-secreting PAs present marginally more frequently with AGR2 expression, howeverm the association was not significant (P>0.05). AGR2 may be a target for the study of PA aggressiveness, and a potential index for the diagnosis or prognosis of PAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]