Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen expression in the vasculature of primary lung carcinomas associates with faster metastatic dissemination to brain

Glioblastomas and brain metastases (BM) of solid tumors are the most common central nervous system neoplasms associated with very unfavorable prognosis. In this study, we report the association of Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen with various clinical parameters in a large cohort of primary and secondary brain tumors. A tissue micro array containing 371 cases of ascending grade gliomas pertaining to astrocytic origin, samples of 52 cases of primary lung carcinomas with matching brain metastases with follow-up time accounting to 10.4 years was evaluated for PSMA expression using immunohistochemistry. In addition, PSMA expression was studied in brain metastases arising from melanomas and breast carcinomas. Neovascular expression of PSMA was evident alongside with high expression in the proliferating microvasculature of glioblastomas when compared to the tumor cell expression. This result corroborated with the results obtained from the in silico (cancer genome databases) analyses. In the matched primary lung cancers and their brain metastases (n = 52), vascular PSMA expression in primary tumors led to significantly accelerated metastatic dissemination to the brain with a tendency towards poor overall survival. Taken together, we report the vascular expression of PSMA in the primary and secondary brain tumors that globally associates with the malignant progression and poor outcome of the patients.