Mesothelioma, a highly aggressive cancer with poor prognosis and refractory to currently available therapies show increasing trends of its incidence in Japan and other developing countries. Although surgery is a gold standard for patients with early mesothelioma, most patients with advanced disease are not suitable for surgical resection and have option of palliative chemotherapy alone. One of the new treatment strategies for mesothelioma, the humanized anti-CD26 monoclonal antibody therapy is under development. CD26, a 110-kDa transmembrane glycoprotein with known dipeptidyl peptidase IV activity, plays a role in tumor development and its expression was reported in various human malignancies. This study determined the preliminary selection criteria for humanized monoclonal anti-CD26 antibody therapy. Eighty-one epithelioid (49 differentiated and 32 less differentiated), 34 sarcomatoid, 19 biphasic mesothelioma and 8 mesothelioma cell lines were immunohistochemically examined using 8 different commercially available anti-CD26 antibodies for membranous and cytoplasmic expression. The cytoplasmic expression of CD26 was observed in all histological types of mesothelioma, while the membranous expression of CD26 was found in 88% of differentiated and 69% of less differentiated epithelioid mesothelioma, and none of sarcomatoid mesothelioma with anti-CD26 antibodies with rabbit polyclonal anti-DPP4 antibody and similar results were also obtained with goat polyclonal anti-DPP4/CD26 antibody. These antibodies absorbed with soluble human CD26 proteins do not show CD26 expression in mesothelioma tissue, suggesting these two antibodies localize true CD26 protein. Seven mesothelioma cell lines, including sarcomatoid types, also showed membranous expression of CD26 in cellblock preparation. CD26 vector transfection to CD26-negative MSTO-211H cells showed membranous expression of CD26 by flow cytometry, but not in tumor developed in NOD/SCID mice with inoculation of CD26 vector transfected MSTO-211H cells. We found that both rabbit and goat polyclonal antibodies are suitable for immunohistochemical evaluation of membranous expression of CD26 in mesothelioma.

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