Aims: Onychomatricoma (OM), an uncommon benign fibroepithelial neoplasm of the nail unit, is sometimes diagnostically challenging for clinicians and pathologists. OM consistently expresses CD34, but no specific immunohistohemical markers or recurrent genetic alterations have been identified to date. Recent studies have suggested that Wnt signalling is a key molecular characteristic of OM.
Methods and results: Ten cases were analysed: four classical OM including two with pleomorphic cells; two superficial acral fibromyxoma-like variants of OM; three micropapilliferum variants of OM including one with pleomorphic cells; and one proliferating variant of OM. Immunohistochemically, the spindle cells were positive with CD34 (n = 10) and CD99 (n = 1), with focal reactivity for CD10 (n = 5). The epithelial component of the tumours expressed immunopositivity for LEF-1. Using array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH), we demonstrated that all OM, including its variants that were tested (n = 8), harboured a few copy number alterations with losses of whole or part of chromosome 13 including the RB1 gene (n = 8) and chromosome 16 (n = 6).
Conclusion: We report a recurrent loss of RB1 (13q) as a possible driver molecular event in OM indicating a relationship between OM and other lesions of the spectrum of the so-called '13q/RB1' family of tumours. We did not identify a role for the Wnt/beta-catenin signalling pathway, as has been proposed in a recent study. LEF-1 could be a potential sensitive and specific marker of OM and should be used in the differential diagnosis between OM, superficial acral fibromyxoma, and the CD34-positive fibrosing family of tumours.
Keywords: RB1; molecular; nail tumour; onychomatricoma; subungual squamous cell carcinoma; superficial CD34-positive fibroblastic tumour; superficial acral fibromyxoma.
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