EC Veterinary Science

Vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C) and iNOS are considered to be a potentially lymphangiogenic and can selectively induce hyperplasia of the lymphatic vasculature. In this study, we aimed to clarify the relation between expression of VEGF-C and iNOS with Flt-4, lymphatic vessel marker, to investigate the intralymphatic tumor growth in canine mammary gland tumor by immunohistochemical method. Using the specific polyclonal antibodies, VEGF-C and iNOS immunolabeled cells were count in benign and malignant canine mammary gland neoplasm. All cases showed some tumor cell positive for VEGF-C and iNOS, and the staining pattern was seen predominantly cytoplasmic. The percentage of VEGF-C and iNOS positive cells ranged from 52.3% to 81.6% and 71.8% to 94.4%, respectively. Lymphatic vessel was investigated by the expression of Flt-4 in lymphatic endothelium and the result shows percentage number of lymph vessel among 15.5% - 37.7%. Although the percentage of Flt-4 positive lymph vessel, VEGF-C and iNOS positive cell in malignant neoplasm were produced in higher amounts than the benign neoplasm, there was highly significant difference (p < 0.05) among neoplastic group. Moreover, the numbers of VEGF-C, iNOS positive cells and tumor lymphatic vessels were positive correlated with each other for both benign and malignant tumor (p < 0.01). This present study suggests that the upregulation of VEGF-C, iNOS in canine mammary gland tumors was interconnected with the intralymphatic tumor growth.

Keywords: VEGF-C; iNOS; Flt-4; Lymphatic Vessel Density; Canine Mammary Gland Tumor

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