Taras Zadvornyi

Conference 2023 Live Talk

Talk title

Collagen fiber organization in benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer

Authors and Affiliations

Taras Zadvornyi1, Oleksandr Mushii1, Valeria Shcherbina1, Tetiana Burda1, Nataliia Lukianova1

1. R.E. Kavetsky Institute of Experimental Pathology, Oncology and Radiobiology, NAS of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine

Abstract

Background

Collagen is the major component of the tumor microenvironment. The morphology, representation and organization of collagen fibers contribute to the formation of a tumor microenvironment, which stimulates tumor progression by increasing cell migration and polarization.
The aim: to study the quantitative indicators of the spatial organization of collagen in the tissue of benign and malignant neoplasms of the prostate gland.

Methods

We studied 40 tissue samples of patients with prostate cancer (PCa) and 20 tissue samples of patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), who were treated at the National Cancer Institute (Kyiv, Ukraine) in 2015-2021. All patients were thoroughly informed about the study that was approved by the local ethics committee. Masson’s trichrome staining was used for the identification collagen fibers. A morphometric study of collagen fiber organization was performed using the ImageJ and CurveAlign 4.0 beta programs. Morphological and immunohistochemical studies of the expression of matrix metalloproteinases (MMP-2, MMP-2 and MMP-9) were performed according to standard protocols. Statistical analysis of the results was carried out using the methods of variation statistics using the program GraphPad Prism 8.

Results

Analysis of the results showed that collagen fiber density (p < 0.05) and alignment (p < 0.01) was lower in the PCa tissue compared to the BPH tissue. Furthermore, collagen fibers in the PCa tissue are characterized by significantly lower values of length (p < 0.05), as well as higher values of width (p < 0.05) compared to similar indicators in the BPH tissue. Moreover, MMP-2 and MMP-8 expression was higher (2.0 times; p < 0.05 and 1.26 times; p < 0.05 respectively) in PCa tissue, compared to the BPH tissue.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that higher changes of collagen microarchitecture in prostate malignant neoplasms may be caused by dysregulation of the expression of MMPs