Department of Bioscience Technology and Center for Biomedical Technology, Chung Yuan Christian University, Chung Li 32023, Taiwan.
Department of Microbiology & Immunology and Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA.
Int J Mol Sci. 2018 Sep 29;19(10):2976. doi: 10.3390/ijms19102976.
METCAM/MUC18 is an integral membrane cell adhesion molecule (CAM) in the Ig-like gene super-family. It can carry out common functions of CAMs which is to perform intercellular interactions and interaction of cell with extracellular matrix in tumor microenvironment, to interact with various signaling pathways and to regulate general behaviors of cells. We and other two groups previously suggested that METCAM/MUC18 probably be utilized as a biomarker for predicting the malignant tendency of clinical ovarian carcinomas, since METAM/MUC18 expression appears to associate with the carcinoma at advanced stages. It has been further postulated to promote the malignant tendency of the carcinoma. However, our recent research results appear to support the conclusion that the above positive correlation is fortuitous; actually METCAM/MUC18 acts as a tumor and metastasis suppressor for the ovarian carcinoma cells. We also suggest possible mechanisms in the METCAM/MUC18-mediated early tumor development and metastasis of ovarian carcinoma. Moreover, we propose to employ recombinant METCAM/MUC18 proteins and other derived products as therapeutic agents to treat the ovarian cancer patients by decreasing the malignant potential of ovarian carcinoma.
METCAM/MUC18 是免疫球蛋白超家族中的一种完整的膜细胞黏附分子 (CAM)。它可以执行 CAM 的常见功能，即在肿瘤微环境中进行细胞间的相互作用和细胞与细胞外基质的相互作用，与各种信号通路相互作用，并调节细胞的一般行为。我们和另外两个研究小组之前曾提出，METCAM/MUC18 可能被用作预测临床卵巢癌恶性倾向的生物标志物，因为 METCAM/MUC18 的表达似乎与晚期癌症有关。进一步推测它可以促进癌症的恶性倾向。然而，我们最近的研究结果似乎支持这样的结论，即上述正相关是偶然的；实际上，METCAM/MUC18 是卵巢癌细胞的肿瘤和转移抑制因子。我们还提出了 METCAM/MUC18 介导的卵巢癌早期肿瘤发展和转移的可能机制。此外，我们建议使用重组 METCAM/MUC18 蛋白和其他衍生产品作为治疗剂，通过降低卵巢癌的恶性潜能来治疗卵巢癌患者。
