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Aberrant Expression of Collagen Triple Helix Repeat Containing 1 in Human Solid Cancers

Authors' Affiliations: ¹ Department of Dermatology and Skin Science and ² Chieng Genomics Centre, Laboratory of Predictive Medicine and Therapeutics, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, and British Columbia Cancer Agency, ³ Department of Pathology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and ⁴ Institute of Dermatology, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China

Requests for reprints: Youwen Zhou, Department of Dermatology and Skin Science, University of British Columbia, 835 West 10th Avenue, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V5Z 4E8. Phone: 604-875-4747; Fax: 604-873-9919; E-mail: ywzhou{at}interchange.ubc.ca.

Purpose: The collagen triple helix repeat containing 1 (CTHRC1) is a promigratory protein first found to be expressed during rat tissue repair process. Recent preliminary results revealed CTHRC¹ mRNA in melanoma and breast cancer. However, the full significance of CTHRC1 to human carcinogenesis remains unclear. This study is to further characterize the clinical and functional relevance of CTHRC1 in melanoma and other human solid cancers.

Experimental Design: First, semiquantitative immunohistochemistry analysis was done on 304 clinically annotated, paraffin-embedded biopsies representing different stages of melanoma progression. Then, short interfering RNA was used to inhibit expression of CTHRC1 protein for migration analysis on cultured melanoma cells. Finally, the CTHRC1 expression was surveyed in 310 samples representing 19 types of human solid cancers.

Results: In benign nevi and noninvasive melanoma biopsies, there was little CTHRC1 protein expression. In contrast, in invasive primary melanomas, there was a significant increase of CTHRC1 protein (P < 0.01, ² test). There was a further increase of CTHRC1 protein in metastatic melanoma specimens compared with nonmetastatic lesions (P < 0.01, ² test). In addition, inhibition of CTHRC1 expression resulted in decreased cell migration in vitro. Finally, transcription survey in 19 types of human solid cancers revealed aberrant CTHRC1 expression in 16 cancer types, especially cancers of the gastrointestinal tract, lung, breast, thyroid, ovarian, cervix, liver, and the pancreas.

Conclusions: Aberrant expression of CTHRC1 is widely present in human solid cancers and seems to be associated with cancer tissue invasion and metastasis. It potentially plays important functional roles in cancer progression, perhaps by increasing cancer cell migration.

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