Subcellular expression of maspin – from normal tissue to tumor cells

Table 3 Maspin expression in brain, organs of the head and neck area, skin and soft tissues

Organ/ tissue	Subcellular expression in normal tissue	Subcellular expression in pathologic conditions
Brain	Positive in nucleus and cytoplasm	Decreased expression in parallel with the advancing glioma stage
Head and neck	Cytoplasm: Oral cavity epithelium and temporal bone; Nucleus: Salivary glands: Myoepithelial cells, basal cells of the ducts and some luminal cells; Negative: Salivary glands: Secretory cells	Oral SCC: Cytoplasm (better prognosis); Temporal bone SCC: Negative, cytoplasm-only or cyto-nuclear; Salivary glands: Pleomorphic adenoma (cyto-nuclear or cytoplasmic only), Warthin’s tumor (cyto-nuclear or cytoplasmic only, weaker than in pleomorphic adenoma), adenoid cystic carcinoma, mucoepidermoid carcinoma (cytoplasmic only, negative in an anaplastic variant of adenoid cystic carcinoma); Laryngeal SCC: Cytoplasm and nucleus
Thyroid	Negative	Negative follicular adenoma, follicular carcinomas, poorly and undifferentiated carcinomas; Cytoplasm: Papillary thyroid carcinoma
Skin	Cytoplasmic: Normal epidermis; Nuclear: Myoepithelial cells of the sweat glands and mature sebaceous glands	SCC: Cytoplasm expression in low stages and nuclear staining in dedifferentiated tumors; Basal cell carcinoma: Cytoplasm and nucleus; Melanoma: Nuclear expression is an indicator of aggressiveness
Soft tissue	Negative	Inflammation: Negative; Lipoma, atypical lipomatous tumor: Cytoplasm; Sarcomas: Cytoplasm or nucleus, as indicators of aggressive behavior

SCC: Squamous cell carcinoma.