Differentiation pathways in duodenal and ampullary carcinomas:: a comparative study on mucin and trefoil peptide expression, including gastric and colon carcinomas

Duodenal carcinomas, such as ampullary tumors, may be a heterogeneous group of neoplasms that share differentiation features with gastric or colorectal carcinomas. Because of the cell- and tissue-specific expression patterns of mucins and trefoil peptides, these markers were used to investigate the differentiation status of duodenal and ampullary carcinomas in comparison with gastric and colorectal carcinomas. Adenocarcinomas (14 duodenal, 10 gastric, 11 ampullary and 10 colorectal) were examined immunohistochemically for the mucin gene products MUC1, MUC2, MUC5AC, MUC6 and the trefoil peptides TFF1 and TFF2. The tumors' expression profile for MUC5AC, MUC6 and TFF1 was used to distinguish between gastric- and intestinal-directed differentiation. The mucins that were most often expressed in the individual tumor types were MUC1 (duodenal and ampullary carcinomas), MUC2 (colorectal carcinomas) and MUC5AC (gastric carcinomas). Further classification focusing on the expression profile for MUC5AC, MUC6 and TFF1 revealed that 21% of the duodenal and 45% of the ampullary carcinomas demonstrated mainly gastric differentiation (positivity for all three markers or only two of them). The remaining duodenal and ampullary carcinomas showed nongastric, i.e., intestinal differentiation (all three markers negative or only one marker positive). The gastric differentiation pattern characterized 60% of gastric carcinomas. Colorectal carcinomas showed intestinal differentiation in 100% of cases. Duodenal carcinomas have a heterogeneous mucin expression pattern that is mainly related to either gastric differentiation or intestinal differentiation. This also holds for ampullary carcinomas. Among the markers used, MUC5AC, MUC6 and TFF1 are most useful for revealing differentiation pathways in duodenal and ampullary carcinoma.