J.Jpn. Surg. Soc.. 99(7): 409-414, 1998

---

Feature topic

EXPRESSION OF VARIANT CD44 IN COLORECTAL CANCER AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO LIVER METASTASIS

A number of different isoforms of CD44 generated by alternative splicing have been isolated and sequenced. There have been several reports that CD44v plays a role in the steps of the metastatic process. We examined the role of the variant CD44v8-10 in metastases of human colon cancer cell line HT29m using a monoclonal antibody reactive with the v9 product (mAb 44-1V). Pretreatment with mAb 44-IV prevented the formation of liver metastases. In addition, we found that the attachment of HT29m cells to the basement membrane matrix was inhibited by mAb 44-1V. Several reports have shown correlations between metastatic potential and expression of CD44v in human colorectal cancer. We demonstrated that CD44v8-10 and CD44v6 RNA expression was higher in carcinomas associated with liver metastases than in those without by Nothern blotting. We analyzed the expression of the CD44v8-10 product in colorectal cancer immunohistochemically using mAb 44-1V, and evaluated its prognostic significance. There were significant correlations between CD 44v8-10 immunoreactivity and both lymph node and liver metastases. Patients with CD44v8-10-positive tumors had a greater relative risk of death compared with those whose tumors were CD44v8-10 negative.
These results suggest that CD44v8-10 may play an important role in the adhesion of tumor cells to the capillaries of distant organs in the metastatic process, and that imunohistochemical detection of CD44v8-10 may be a biologic marker of prognostic significance.

---

---

To read the PDF file you will need Adobe Reader installed on your computer.