Burger Angelika M, Grugel Renate, Landberg Göran, Kitching Richard, Seth Arun
Molecular and Cell Biology Research, Laboratory of Molecular Pathology, Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Science Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
Anticancer Res. 2003 May-Jun;23(3A):2027-33.
The breast cancer-associated gene Di12 encodes a novel protein, which was found overexpressed in invasive ductal carcinomas of the breast. In experiments designed to assess the role of the Di12 gene in oncogenesis, the overexpression of 339 N-terminal amino acids of this gene in NIH3T3 cells resulted in cellular transformation and in vivo tumorigenesis. NIH3T3-Di12 tumor cell growth was partly reversible upon Di12 antisense treatment. In addition, transformation of the ER+ human breast cancer cell line MCF-7 resulted in hormone independent growth of these tumors in nude mice. Di12 expression in NIH3T3 and MCF-7 tumor cells was confirmed by RT-PCR and mabDi12 immunostaining. Immunohistochemistry using mabDi12 on an arrayed collection of 106 invasive breast tumors further underlined the expression of the gene in over 75% of advanced stage breast cancers. Our data indicate that Di12 expression is oncogenic in in vitro transformation and in vivo tumorigenic assays.
