ABSTRACT
Autophagy is activated in cancer cells in response to multiple stresses and has been demonstrated to promote tumor cell survival and drug resistance in neuroblastoma (NB). This study was conducted to analyze the ultrastructural features of peripheral neuroblastic tumors (pNTs) and identify the relation of the types of NTs, the proliferation rate, and MYCN gene amplification with a number of autophagic vacuoles. Our results indicate that aggressive human NBs show a massive increase in the number of autophagic vacuoles associated with proliferation rate and that alteration of the mitochondria might be an important factor for the induction of autophagy in NTs.
Acknowledgments
The authors are thankful to Dr. Mileva Micic for her comments and help with the article and to Ljubomir Corovic for the preparation of ultrathin sections.
Funding
The study was supported in part by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia (grant number 41025).