Overexpression of variant isoforms of CD44 (CD44v) is most commonly linked to cancer progression, whereas their loss is associated with inhibition of tumor growth.
The results suggest that expression of CD44 in these cutaneous epithelial tumors is not related to malignant transformation, but instead may be related to tumor progression and the ability to metastasize.
This article summarizes briefly the present knowledge on known functions of CD44 isoforms with particular focus on parallels between physiological programs and tumor progression.
Cluster of differentiation 44 (CD44) is a receptor for hyaluronic acid (HA) and HA-binding has been proven to participate in various biological tumor activities, including tumor progression, metastasis and drug resistance.
Downregulation of AZGP1 by Ikaros and histone deacetylase promotes tumor progression through the PTEN/Akt and CD44s pathways in hepatocellular carcinoma.
Dual luciferase assay revealed that CD44 was a direct target of miR-34a in renal cancer cells and CD44 knockdown by RNAi in renal cancer cells suppressed tumor progression.
In this study we examined the relationships of cancer progression with mRNA levels of RHAMM, CD44 (all forms), and exon 6 of CD44 using the real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction method in specimens of colon cancers at different diagnostic stages from 30 patients.
Higher CD44 expression was associated with more aggressive behavior, tumor progression and worse prognosis in clear cell RCC (ccRCC) but not in papillary and chromophobe RCC subtypes.
Expression of CD44, particularly of certain splice variants, has been linked to tumor progression and metastatic potential in a number of different animal and human cancers.
This study sought to evaluate the expression of CD44 standard (CD44s) and CD44v6 in primary, metastatic and recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer to explore the potential association of CD44s and CD44v6 with tumor progression and recurrence.
In conclusion, our findings revealed that EMP3 might be a potential target for CD44-high GBMs and highlight the essential functions of EMP3 in TGF-β/Smad2/3 signaling activation and tumor progression.
Hyaluronan (HA), one of the major ECM (extracellular matrix) components have been identified as a physiological ligand for surface CD44 isoforms which are frequently overexpressed in malignant tumor cells during cancer progression.
We examined the relationship between cancer progression and mRNA levels of CD44 variant exon 6 (CD44v6) in specimens of colon cancer at different diagnostic stages from 31 patients using real time RT-PCR analysis.