Objectives: Exosomes - microvesicles which are secreted by living cells - can be produced from different cell types and detected in various body fluids. They are the carriers of intercellular information which regulate tumor microenvironment and are considered to be involved in tumor progression and metastasis. Cancer cells can secrete more exosomes than healthy cells, and are expected to be potential tools for tumor diagnosis and treatment.
Material and methods: In this report, we present the results of microparticle analysis in peripheral and uterine blood of patients with endometrial cancer. To the best of our knowledge, this study has been the first to report microvesicle status in peripheral and uterine blood samples. The aim of the study was to determine the amount of total (TF+), endothelial (CD144+) and monocytic (CD14+) microparticles. The counting of the selected microparticles in citrate plasma was performed using flow cytometry on the BD Canto II cytometer.
Results: We found that the total amount of microparticles in cancer patients was much higher than in healthy controls. Moreover, microparticle count in uterine blood was higher than in peripheral blood of patients with endometrial cancer. We also demonstrated that the amount of microparticles correlates with the histologic grade and clinical stage of the tumor.
Conclusions: The most interesting finding in this work was the high level of TF, CD144 and CD14 MPs in uterine blood samples. Thus we can consider the monocyte-macrophage-derived MPs as a candidate marker of endometrial cancer and maybe very critical part of the endometrial carcinogenesis.
Keywords: biomarkers; endometrial cancer; exosomes; microparticles.