Minichromosome maintenance protein 2 expression in normal kidney and renal cell carcinomas: relationship to tumor dormancy and potential clinical utility.

Abstract

This is the first study examining Mcm2 protein in normal and tumor kidney samples, and the first to perform histological subgroup analysis. It shows that Mcm2 is a superior marker to Ki-67 in the assessment of cell cycle entry in histological archival material and that normal kidney has a subset of cells within the glomerular and tubular compartments that are in cycle. It demonstrates that the frequency of cells in cycle in tumors formed from stable or labile epithelial populations mirrors that in the nonneoplastic epithelium. This study additionally demonstrates that the number of cells in cycle in tumors is limited by the angiogenic phenotype and supports animal models that show angiogenesis determines the likelihood of tumor dormancy. Additional study to confirm the clinical utility of Mcm2 as a prognostic marker is now indicated.