Actinin-4 splice variant - a complementary diagnostic and prognostic marker of pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms.

Introduction: For pathological diagnosis of pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (pNENs) the routinely used immunohistochemical markers are chromogranin A (CgA) and synaptophysin (Syn). Their ability as prognostic markers is not well established. A splice variant of actinin-4 (Actn-4sv) was recently found to be an excellent biomarker of neuroendocrine neoplasms of the lung. We aimed to investigate the expression of Actn-4sv in pNENs and evaluate its quality as a biomarker of pNENs. Methods: Paraffin-embedded and frozen tissues specimens from 122 pNENs were analyzed. Western blots were performed to prove and compare the relative amount of Actn-4sv expression in pNENs tissue homogenates. For c…