The correlation between p16 expression and HPV infection in lung gland precursor lesions and lung adenocarcinoma
Purpose To investigate the expression differ-ence of p16 in lung gland precursor lesions and lung adenocarci-noma and its correlation with HPV infection.Method The ex-pression of p16 in the tissues of 30 cases of pulmonary atypical adenomatous hyperplasia(AAH),40 cases of adenocarcinoma in situ(AIS),33 cases of microinvasive adenocarcinoma(MIA),and 45 cases of invasive adenocarcinoma(IAC)mainly of the acinar type was detected by immunohistochemical(IHC)method,and the relationship between p16 expression and the clinicopathological characteristics of the patients was analyzed.The PCR was used to detect HPV infection in IAC,and the cor-relation between p16 expression and HPV infection was ana-lyzed.Results The results of IHC showed that the expression of p16 protein was positively correlated with the precursors of lung glands and the histological grade of lung adenocarcinoma(P<0.05).Compared with non-infiltrating components,the expression of p16 protein in MIA and IAC infiltrating compo-nents was significantly increased(P<0.05).The PCR results showed that the positive detection rate of HPV DNA in the high expression group of p16 was significantly higher than that in the low expression group of IAC(P<0.05).Conclusion The ex-pression of p16 protein is significantly correlated with the malig-nant progression of lung adenocarcinoma,which may be an ideal molecular marker to accurately identify the infiltrating compo-nents of lung adenocarcinoma.High expression of p16 in IAC may suggest HPV infection.