Apoptosis and anti-apoptotic heat shock proteins in canine cutaneous infundibular keratinizing acanthomas and squamous cell carcinomas

Cell stress and death are linked in the neoplastic process,and heat shock proteins appear to play an importantrole by inhibiting apoptotic pathways. The apoptoticrates in 9 canine infundibular keratinizing acanthomas(IKAs) and 17 canine squamous cell carcinomas(SCCs) were correlated with the immunohistochemicalexpression of caspase-3 and the antiapoptotic heatshock proteins Hsp27, 72 and 73. Apoptosis was evaluatedusing the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferasebiotin-dUTP nick end labelling (TUNEL) method.The absence of a correlation between the TUNELindex and active-caspase-3 expression, a paucity ofactive-caspase-3-positive cells and Hsp72 overexpressionwere considered to be indicative ofinhibition of apoptosis, and suggestive that inhibitionof cell death plays a key role in oncogenesis andtumour growth of some canine skin neoplasms.[...]