Objective: Tumor growth regulation by extracellular matrix components has been one of the main topics on tumor biology in the last years. We aimed to investigate the protein expression pattern of decorin and versican in superficial spreading melanoma (SSM) and its precursors.
Patients and methods: Paraffin-embedded sections of benign nevi (BN), dysplastic nevi (DN), and primary SSM were assessed. Immunohistochemistry was performed for decorin and versican antibodies.
Results: We investigated 64 patients with BN (n = 29), DN (n = 15), and SSM (n = 20) with a median Breslow thickness of 0.8 mm (0.2 - 4.6 mm). We did not observe decorin or versican immunoreactivity in melanocytes but in peritumoral stroma. Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA did not reveal significant differences of decorin expression between the groups investigated (P = 0.19). However, compared to BN and DN median expression of versican was significantly increased in SSM (P = 0.016 and P = 0.019, respectively). Decorin as well versican expression of SSM did not significantly correlate with Breslow tumor thickness or Clark level.
Conclusion: Our data indicate that decorin is not differentially expressed in peritumoral stroma of SSM, DN, BN, and thus unlikely of pathogenetic significance in melanoma transformation and/or progression. By contrast, we have demonstrated that SSM is associated with a significant overexpression of peritumoral versican suggesting a role for versican in the pathogenesis of melanoma.