Sanchez Lockhart M, Hajos S E, Basilio F M, Mongini C, Alvarez E
Cátedra de Inmunología, IDEHU (CONICET), Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Oncol Rep. 2001 Jan-Feb;8(1):145-51.
CD44 is an adhesion molecule involved in many biological functions and has been described to play a role in tumor progression as well as in promotion of metastasis. It has also been suggested that expression of certain CD44 isoforms could be useful for breast and ovarian cancer screening, detection or staging. However, many other reports document no correlation between CD44 isoform expression and tumor malignancy. In light of such contradictory findings, we evaluated by exon-specific RT-PCR whether the expression of CD44 isoforms in breast and ovarian tumors correlated with any of the diagnostic criteria used to assess these diseases. We found a deregulation in the CD44 expression pattern in malignant tumors of both type of cancer compared with the one in benign tumors or normal tissue. However, we could not find a clear correlation between this deregulation or a given CD44 isoform and any diagnostic criteria evaluated, such as age, clinical data, tumor size, hormone receptor status, histological grade or aggressiveness.
CD44是一种参与多种生物学功能的黏附分子，据报道它在肿瘤进展以及转移促进过程中发挥作用。也有人提出，某些CD44亚型的表达可能有助于乳腺癌和卵巢癌的筛查、检测或分期。然而，许多其他报告表明CD44亚型表达与肿瘤恶性程度之间并无关联。鉴于这些相互矛盾的研究结果，我们通过外显子特异性逆转录聚合酶链反应（exon-specific RT-PCR）评估了乳腺癌和卵巢肿瘤中CD44亚型的表达是否与用于评估这些疾病的任何诊断标准相关。我们发现，与良性肿瘤或正常组织相比，这两种癌症的恶性肿瘤中CD44表达模式均出现失调。然而，我们未能发现这种失调或特定的CD44亚型与所评估的任何诊断标准（如年龄、临床数据、肿瘤大小、激素受体状态、组织学分级或侵袭性）之间存在明确的相关性。
