The proteins Ena/VASP (Enabled/Vasodilator-Stimulated Phosphoprotein) family is involved in the regulation of actin cytoskeleton which activity is very important for physiological tissue formation but is sometimes implied in pathological processes. In this study, we analyzed the immunohistochemical expression of Mammalian Ena (Mena), which is a member of this family, in the cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and also in the cervical squamous cell carcinomas. We analyzed 30 cases with CIN (1, 2 and 3), and 10 squamous carcinomas. We used the EnVision system by LabVision. The Mena antibody, izotype mouse IgA, clone 21, provided by BD Biosciences.
Results: We observed that Mena was not expressed in the normal cervical squamous epithelium but its expression was increased in parallel with the increasing grade of CIN, with up-regulation upon transition to CIN3 and further to invasive carcinoma. This is the first study in the literature about Mena expression in cervical lesions.