The density of mast cells c-Kit+ and tryptase+ correlates with each other and with angiogenesis in pancreatic cancer patients

// Michele Ammendola 1 , Cosmo Damiano Gadaleta 7 , Adam Enver Frampton 2 , Tullio Piardi 3 , Riccardo Memeo 8 , Valeria Zuccala 4 , Maria Luposella 5 , Rosa Patruno 6 , Nicola Zizzo 6 , Pietro Gadaleta 7 , Patrick Pessaux 8 , Rosario Sacco 1 , Giuseppe Sammarco 1 and Girolamo Ranieri 7 1 Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Clinical Surgery Unit, University of Catanzaro “Magna Graecia” Medical School, Viale Europa-Germaneto, Catanzaro, Italy 2 HPB Surgical Unit, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College, Hammersmith Hospital, London, UK 3 Department of General, Digestive and Endocrine Surgery, Hopital Robert Debre, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Reims, Universite de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France 4 Pathology Unit, “Pugliese-Ciaccio” Hospital, Catanzaro, Italy 5 Cardiovascular Disease Unit, “San Giovanni di Dio” Hospital, Crotone, Italy 6 Chair of Pathology, Veterinary Medical School, University “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy 7 Interventional Radiology Unit with Integrated Section of Traslational Medical Oncology, National Cancer Research Centre, “Giovanni Paolo II”, Bari, Italy 8 Hepato-Biliary and Pancreatic Surgical Unit, General, Digestive and Endocrine Surgery, IRCAD, IHU Mix-Surg, Institute for Minimally Invasive Image-Guided Surgery, University of Strasbourg, 1 place de l'Hopital, Strasbourg, France Correspondence to: Michele Ammendola, email: michele.ammendola@libero.it Keywords: angiogenesis, mast cells, tryptase, c-Kit-receptor, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma Received: May 26, 2017 Accepted: June 24, 2017 Published: July 31, 2017 ABSTRACT Literature data suggest that inflammatory cells such as mast cells (MCs) are involved in angiogenesis. MCs can stimulate angiogenesis by releasing of well identified pro-angiogenic cytokines stored in their cytoplasm. In particular, MCs can release tryptase, a potent in vivo and in vitro pro-angiogenic factor. Nevertheless, few data are available concerning the role of MCs positive to tryptase in primary pancreatic cancer angiogenesis. This study analyzed the correlation between mast cells positive to c-Kit receptor (c-Kit + MCs), the density of MCs expressing tryptase (MCD-T) and microvascular density (MVD) in primary tumor tissue from patients affected by pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). A series of 35 PDAC patients with stage T 2-3 N 0-1 M 0 (by AJCC for Pancreas Cancer Staging 7 th Edition) were selected and then undergone to surgery. Tumor tissue samples were evaluated by mean of immunohistochemistry and image analysis methods in terms of number of c-Kit + MCs, MCD-T and MVD. The above parameters were related each other and with the most important main clinico-pathological features. A significant correlation between c-Kit + MCs, MCD-T and MVD groups each other was found by Pearson t-test analysis (r ranged from 0.75 to 0.87; p-value ranged from 0.01 to 0.04). No other significant correlation was found. Our in vivo preliminary data, suggest that tumor microenvironmental MCs evaluated in terms of c-Kit + MCs and MCD-T may play a role in PDAC angiogenesis and they could be further evaluated as a novel tumor biomarker and as a target of anti-angiogenic therapy.