Therefore, in this study, we immunohistochemically evaluated the expression of alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), podoplanin, and periostin among these proposed markers in 92 cases of lung adenocarcinoma.
Podoplanin expression in cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) has been proposed as an unfavourable indicator in squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, but little is known about its clinical significance in early-stage lung adenocarcinoma.
We compared the expression levels of immune-regulatory cytokines between the PDPN high and low expression groups by analyzing the gene expression profiles of lung adenocarcinoma (n = 442).
Our results indicate that the presence of abundant tumor promoting stromal cells, CD204 (+) TAMs, and podoplanin (+) CAFs is characteristic of the tumor microenvironment containing CAIX (+) CAFs, which contributes to an increase in aggressive behavior in lung adenocarcinoma with hypoxic regions.
Podoplanin-positive cancer-associated fibroblast recruitment within cancer stroma is associated with a higher number of single nucleotide variants in cancer cells in lung adenocarcinoma.
Podoplanin and fibroblast growth factor (FGF) 1 have been detected more frequently in lung squamous cell carcinoma (SQCC) compared with lung adenocarcinoma.
Furthermore, the analysis of small-sized human lung adenocarcinoma (n = 112) revealed that patients with podoplanin-positive cancer-associated fibroblasts had a significantly higher rate of lymph node metastasis and a high risk of recurrence.