Overexpression of TEX101, a potential novel cancer marker, in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

TEX101, a member of the Ly-6/urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (LU)-family we previously identified, is a germ cell-marker glycoprotein. To date, it is reported that some members of the protein-family are overexpressed in a variety of cancer tissues. We previously reported Ly6k, a member of the LU-family, as an association molecule with TEX101 in murine male germ cells. LY6K (a human homologue of Ly6k) is overexpressed in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC). These facts led us to speculate that TEX101 may also exist in HNSCC, like LY6K. Using an anti-human TEX101 polyclonal antibody (pAb) established, we examined the expression of TEX101 protein in cancer tissues by immunohistochemical analysis. TEX101 was detected in the cancer cells of some tissue specimens from patients with HNSCC, whereas the normal squamous epithelium was immunonegative. The TEX101 protein was detected in cancer cells from 54 out of 64 (80.6%) patients with HNSCC. The rate of lymph nodes metastasis tends to be low in TEX101-positive patients, compared to patients with weakly positive and negative expression of TEX101. The present results imply that TEX101 is a novel cancer-related protein and may be useful as a marker for prognosis/diagnosis of HNSCC.

A Role of the TEX101 Interactome in the Common Aetiology Behind Male Subfertility and Testicular Germ Cell Tumor

“…There is a growing body of evidence that TEX101 is associated with multiple forms of cancer ( 46 , 47 ). Expression of TEX101 has been demonstrated in 38% of basal cell carcinoma tissue samples compared to the absence of expression in normal skin tissue samples ( 46 ).…”

Human testis-expressed sequence 101 is limitedly distributed in germinal epithelium of testis and disappears in seminoma

“…Previous studies demonstrated that TEX101 could reduce the activities of uPA, MMPs and cathepsin B, leading to the suppression of cell growth and migration [ 12 ]. We speculated that the loss of TEX101 could disrupt the metabolic balance of the above-mentioned enzymes in the germinal epithelium, which could contribute to the growth and migration of mutant cancer cells.…”

“…Sertoli cell only syndrome), TEX101 should not be a good marker. Other studies found the expression of TEX101 in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) as well as in nasopharyngeal carcinoma and chronic myeloid leukemia [ 10 – 12 ], which indicated that TEX101 could be related to cancer progression.…”

“…Because of its specific significance in testis, TEX101 has been utilized as a biomarker for male infertility, and this was confirmed to diagnose azoospermia by means of testicular biopsy by Drabovich’s team [ 9 ]. More recently, the expression and behavior of TEX101 in cancer were also investigated and showed potential significance for cancer progression [ 10 – 12 ]. YIN et al found that TEX101 could bind to uPA/uPAR complexes and interfere with the activities of uPA, matrix metalloproteinases and cathepsin B, which resulted in the reduction of extracellular matrix degradation and consequent suppression of cancer invasion [ 13 ].…”

Genome-wide identification of cancer/testis genes and their association with prognosis in a pan-cancer analysis

“…The robustness of our method is shown by the identification of genes clearly associated with disease progression among the set of 113 CT genes more strongly related to patient outcome by our analysis. Included in this set of genes are TEX101 [ 39 ], HORMAD2 [ 40 ], OTP [ 41 ] and TEX19 [ 42 ]. It is interesting to notice that CT genes are not significantly enriched for genes associated to prognosis (data not shown).…”