A homologue of the Drosophila headcase protein is a novel tumor marker for early-stage colorectal cancer

Abstract

Abstract. The altered expression of certain genes is frequently detected as a hallmark of malignant tumors. These differentially expressed genes have the potential to become molecular markers. We purified the fecal mRNA from patients with colorectal cancer to identify novel candidates by using oligonucleotide microarray hybridization. We identified 21 upregulated and 22 downregulated candidates with significantly altered expression in patient fecal samples that have not been previously characterized. A gene encoding a homologue of the Drosophila headcase protein (HECA) was further examined due to its high ranking and possible importance in some human cancers. A tendency towards increased expression of HECA was dependent upon the clinicopathological stage. In this report, healthy individuals expressed less HECA, either in their blood samples or feces. Moreover, we detected upregulated HECA in blood and fecal samples of patients with colorectal cancer, and its expression level was shown to be significantly correlated with disease status. Our data show that HECA may be an early-stage classifier of colorectal cancer that can discriminate between late-and early-stage disease. In conclusion, this study is the first to analyze differentially expressed genes in the feces of colorectal cancer patients using oligonucleotide microarrays. The data suggest that HECA expression levels in feces may be an effective classifier for early-stage colorectal cancer.

A genome-wide RNAi screen for Wnt/β-catenin pathway components identifies unexpected roles for TCF transcription factors in cancer

“…Increases of either gene product in the serum (28) or feces (29) of CRC patients correlate with poor prognosis. Our findings predict that chemical inhibitors that inhibit the receptor of HGF, the Met receptor kinase, might be particularly useful in tumors with decreased Tcf7l2 function.…”

Genetic Control of Specificity to Steroid-Triggered Responses in Drosophila

“…E93 encodes an ecdysone-induced transcription factor required for the destruction of salivary glands (Lee et al 2000). hdc encodes an evolutionarily conserved protein containing domains with currently unknown molecular functions (Weaver and White 1995;Chien et al 2006). mdh2 is a nuclear-encoded mitochondrial malate dehydrogenase (Wang et al 2008(Wang et al , 2010.…”

Discovery of genes from feces correlated with colorectal cancer progression

“…Each NIH 3T3-containing fecal sample was stored under different conditions ( Fig. 1) in our specific buffer (30). The fecal total RNA was extracted and reverse transcribed into complementary (c)DNA as detailed in our previous reports (21,30).…”

“…1) in our specific buffer (30). The fecal total RNA was extracted and reverse transcribed into complementary (c)DNA as detailed in our previous reports (21,30). The mouse β-actin gene (NM_007393) was specifically quantified by qPCR on a LightCycler 1.5 instrument (Roche Diagnostics GmbH, Mannheim, Germany), according to the standard protocol (37).…”

“…Studies of active genes in human feces have revealed specific molecular signatures of different CRC patients (28,29). Previously, several genes were reported as having differential expression in the feces of CRC patients (21,30). Furthermore, a number of these genes were correlated with cancer (20,21,24,(31)(32)(33)(34).…”