A potential upregulation of receptor type protein tyrosine phosphatase IA-2 (ICA512) expression was detected by differential display and investigated in midgut carcinoid tumours. Normal intestine tissue and tumour tissue from 13 midgut carcinoid patients were studied by in situ hybridisation using an IA-2 ribonucleotide probe and confocal microscopy using specific IA-2 antibodies. Previously, it had been shown that IA-2 is located in the secretory granules of virtually all neuroendocrine cells. However, we found that IA-2 was not detectable in resting normal enterochromaffin (EC) cells of the small intestine, while high expression of IA-2 mRNA and protein was confirmed in both primary and metastatic carcinoid tissue. This difference in expression was not observed with chromogranin A or serotonin, two secretory granule hormones known to be expressed in EC cells, indicating that IA-2 was seemingly not necessary for the basal production and packaging of these hormones. When comparing patients receiving biotherapy before operation with untreated patients, we found expression of IA-2 to be lower in tumours from patients that had been treated with a combination of alpha-interferon and the somatostatin analogue, octreotide. There was no correlation between IA-2 expression and proliferation rates as measured by immunohistochemistry with antibodies against the Ki 67 antigen. Furthermore, we show that IA-2 is co-localised with serotonin in carcinoid tumours as well as in the pancreatic tumour cell line, BON1, which is interesting as serotonin secretion rate is presumably higher in tumour cells than in resting EC cells. Taken together, these findings may indicate a role for IA-2 in the later stages of the regulated secretory process.