Kaposi's sarcoma

In their report Wang and colleagues6 show that Kaposi's sarcoma neoplastic cells share a more similar gene-expression pattern with endothelial cells than any other cell type analysed. They then show that markers of lymphatic and vascular endothelial cells are present in Kaposi's sarcoma sp...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Lancet (British edition) 2004-08, Vol.364 (9436), p.740-741
Main Author: Flore, Ornella
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antiretroviral agents
Cells
Endothelium, Lymphatic - metabolism
Endothelium, Lymphatic - pathology
Endothelium, Lymphatic - virology
Gene expression
Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic
Genes
Herpes viruses
Herpesvirus 8, Human - physiology
Humans
Kaposi's sarcoma
Kaposis sarcoma
Lymphangiogenesis
Medical research
Sarcoma
Sarcoma, Kaposi - genetics
Sarcoma, Kaposi - pathology
Sarcoma, Kaposi - physiopathology
Sarcoma, Kaposi - virology
Vascular endothelial growth factor
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In their report Wang and colleagues6 show that Kaposi's sarcoma neoplastic cells share a more similar gene-expression pattern with endothelial cells than any other cell type analysed. They then show that markers of lymphatic and vascular endothelial cells are present in Kaposi's sarcoma spindle cells.6 This finding suggests that Kaposi's sarcoma cells do not truly represent either cell lineage, although the spindle-cell component expresses mainly lymphatic endothelial cell markers. As Wang and colleagues point out, Kaposi's sarcoma herpesvirus can infect both lymphatic and vascular endothelial cells and induce changes in their transcription pattern, making the gene-expression profile of both cell types closer to each other than to the corresponding uninfected cell type. At the core of these findings is the observation that Kaposi's sarcoma herpesvirus causes transcriptional reprogramming of the infected cells, and induces over-expression of several cellular cytokines, chemokines, and their receptors. Among these molecules, those related to angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis, such as angiopoietin-2, VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor), and VEGF-D, have a particular clinical relevance; their concentrations are substantially higher in plasma of individuals with AIDS and Kaposi's sarcoma than in healthy donors. In addition, plasma concentrations of angiopoietin-2 and VEGF-D decrease substantially during resolution of Kaposi's sarcoma with antiretroviral therapy.
ISSN:0140-6736
1474-547X
DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(04)16952-3