The Emerging Role of Cytoskeletal Proteins as Reliable Biomarkers

Abstract

Cytoskeletal proteins are essential building blocks of cells. More than 100 cytoskeletal and cytoskeleton‐associated proteins are known and for some, their function and regulation are understood in great detail. Apart from cell shape and support, they facilitate many processes such as intracellular signaling and transport, and cancer related processes such as proliferation, migration, and invasion. During the last decade, comparative proteomic studies have identified cytoskeletal proteins as in vitro markers for tumor progression and metastasis. Here, these results are summarized and a number of unrelated studies are highlighted, identifying the same cytoskeletal proteins as potential biomarkers. These findings might indicate that the abundance of these potential markers of tumor progression is associated with the biological outcome and are independent of the cancer origin. This correlates well with recently published results from the Cancer Genome Atlas, indicating that cancers show remarkable similarities in their analyzed molecular information, independent of their organ of origin. It is postulated that the quantification of cytoskeletal proteins in healthy tissues, tumors, in adjacent tissues, and in stroma, is a great source of molecular information, which might not only be used to classify tumors, but more importantly to predict patients’ outcome or even best treatment choices.

SPTAN1 Expression Predicts Treatment and Survival Outcomes in Colorectal Cancer

“…In cancer, reorganisation of the actin cytoskeleton is associated with the epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT), tumour aggressiveness and metastatic spread [ 27 , 28 ]. A growing body of evidence supports the view that EMT, cytoskeletal remodelling, and active TGF-β signalling all confer a negative prognosis, both in CRC and across many other types of cancer [ 12 , 29 , 30 ]. Our data on the upregulation of actin cytoskeletal genes in UICC stage IV tumours are consistent with these general assumptions that place cytoskeletal organisation and remodelling at the heart of tumour biology.…”

Cytoplasmic Localization Isoform of Cyclin Y Enhanced the Metastatic Ability of Lung Cancer via Regulating Tropomyosin 4

“…The active formation of actin stress fibers plays important roles in cell mobility and invasion (Gerashchenko et al, 2019;Klingler-Hoffmann et al, 2019). In HCC, CCNY/PFTK1 promotes actin polymerization by activating non-canonical Wnt signaling via Rho GTPase activation (Sun et al, 2014).…”

“…**p < 0.01 vs. H1299 cells transfected with pEGFP-N1 vector. Klingler-Hoffmann et al, 2019). The effect of CCNYc on cell F-actin assembly was determined, and phalloidin was used to label F-actin.…”

Investigation of creep properties and the cytoskeletal structures of non‐tumorigenic breast cells and triple‐negative breast cancer cells

“…The cytoskeletal structure of the cell (Figure 1) is a heterogeneous structure that consists of different cell proteins, the actin filaments, microtubules, and intermediate filament, 32–35 and it is primarily responsible for structural support, localization, and transport of organelles in the cell, and intracellular trafficking 23,25 . The cell cytoskeleton plays an important role in the study of the mechanical properties of the cell, and in the development of mechanical biomarkers for the detection of diseases such as cancer, a disease characterized by marked tumor heterogeneity and diverse molecular orientations 25,36,37 . Figure 1A,B show the schematic of the cytoskeletal structures of a cell and the stained images for the different protein structures of the cell cytoskeleton respectively.…”