1. Article title:

Expression of Chemokine Receptor CXCR4 in Primary and Metastatic Neuroblastoma Expression of CXCR4 in Neuroblastoma

2. Article author or authors

Yousef Al-Saraireh , William Haddadin, Nafea Alboaisa, Jamal Alarjat, Jehad Al-Shuneigat, Nedal Alnawaiseh, Ahmed Youssef, and Hani Al-Shagahin.

3. Name of journal and date of publication

Biomedical and Pharmacology Journal (2016/8/21)

4. Article abstract

Neuroblastoma is the most common neuroendocrine  childhood tumour having a potential to metastasize to lymph nodes, bone marrow, bones and liver. All of these metastatic sites were shown to express a chemokine receptor; CXCR4. CXCR4 has been involved in the directional homing of tumour cells to metastatic sites rich in stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF1). The Aim of this study is to investigate expression of CXCR4 in both the primary and metastatic clinical samples of neuroblastoma. A total of 31 archived tissue specimens of neuroblastoma were subjected to immunohistochemical staining using a monoclonal antibody specific for CXCR4. CXCR4 expression grades were compared with demographic and clinical characteristics for each patient. Results showed that CXCR4 was significantly expressed in primary and metastatic neuroblastoma. There was high CXCR4 expression in tumors with advanced stage of disease which correlated with increased metastatic potential to bone marrow. High CXCR4 expression was shown to connote unfavourable disease prognosis especially in patients with advanced stage of neuroblastoma. Consequently, aberrant CXCR4 expression is significantly associated with unfavorable disease prognosis and high metastatic spread to bone marrow in children with primary and metastatic neuroblastoma.