J Korean Med Sci.  1995 Jun;10(3):169-175. 10.3346/jkms.1995.10.3.169.

Identification of CD44 splice variant in Korean colorectal cancers and cell lines

• Suh SI
• Baek WK
• Park JW
• Bae OS
• Suh MH
• Choe BK

• KMID: 1054340
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.1995.10.3.169

Abstract

CD44 is a glycoprotein expressed in a wide variety of cell types. Recently expression of some alternatively-spliced variants of CD44 transcripts (CD44v) has been suggested to play a potential role in tumor metastasis and the detection of CD44v containing exon 6 to 11 may be helpful for the diagnosis of cancers. Expressions of CD44v containing exon 6 to 11 were investigated in 20 human colorectal cancer samples, peripheral blood leukocytes isolated from colorectal cancer patients, and 4 colorectal cancer cell lines using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and Southern blot analysis. The standard form of CD44 transcripts was expressed in all samples tested. CD44v containing exon 6 to 11 was expressed in 18 cases of colorectal cancers (sensitivity = 90%), 3 out of 4 cell lines, and one normal tissue (specificity = 95%). These results suggest that the expression of CD44v containing exon 6 to 11 can be regarded as tumor specific and that this marker may be helpful for the early diagnosis of colon cancers, if specimens from the early stage are available.

Keyword

CD44 splice variant; Colorectal cancer

MeSH Terms

Adenocarcinoma/*genetics
Adult
Aged
Antigens, CD44/*genetics
Base Sequence
Blotting, Southern
Colorectal Neoplasms/diagnosis/*genetics
DNA Primers
Electrophoresis, Agar Gel
Feces/chemistry/cytology
Female
Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic/genetics
Human
Male
Middle Age
Molecular Sequence Data
Polymerase Chain Reaction
RNA Splicing/*physiology
RNA, Messenger/analysis
Tumor Cells, Cultured/*physiology
Tumor Markers, Biological