The overexpression of CD44 in cancer cells reroutes number of oncogenic pathways including the central Pi3K/Akt/NF-kB pathway leading to cancer progression and malignancy.
CD44/MyD88 co-expression was associated with tumor progression, metastasis, and recurrence in advanced EOC, and an independent prognostic factor for disease-free survival and overall survival.
A complex preclinical experimental set-up was established to separately test the different steps of tumour progression and the role of tumour microenvironment, respectively, focusing on the role of 'CD44' in this process.
CD44 is an adhesion protein involved in tumour progression, metastasis and stemness in different cancers; however, there has been controversies about the significance of CD44 expression in neuroblastoma and its relationship with tumour progression.
Down-regulation of the cell-surface adhesion molecule CD44 has been suggested to play an important role in tumor progression and metastasis of prostate cancer.
Expression of none of the CD44 variant epitopes was found to be positively correlated with tumour progression or with colorectal tumour metastasis to the liver, results which are inconsistent with a role for CD44 variants as indicators of colonic cancer progression.
CD44 variant proteins have been implicated in tumor progression and metastasis, and a correlation with adverse prognosis has been demonstrated in a variety of human tumors.
In cutaneous melanoma, the standard CD44 molecule is abundantly expressed, whereas the expression of certain splice variants is related to tumour progression and to the metastatic potential of the cell line.
In addition, immunohistochemical analysis suggested that CD44 may be involved in the differentiation process or tumor progression, depending on the macroscopic type of CCA.
CD44 alternative splicing patterns differ between normal and malignant tissue, and accordingly, modulation of CD44 splicing has received the most attention in studies that have examined the role of CD44 in tumor progression.
Osteopontin (OPN) plays important roles in tumor progression and metastasis through binding to OPN receptors such as alpha(v)beta(beta) integrin and CD44, and its overexpression in tumor is associated poor clinical outcome of NSCLC patients.
Expressions of CD44s and CD44v6 play an important role in tumor progression; especially, CD44v6 expression may be a useful predictor of lymph node metastasis, while the expressions of E-cadherin and beta-catenin complex are more probably related to tumor morphology than to tumor progression.
The expression of some CD44 isoforms has been shown to be involved in tumor progression and metastatic spread in a rat carcinoma model and in human carcinomas.
Our analyses demonstrated, that although the melanoma CD44 fingerprint is qualitatively stable, quantitative changes are observed suggesting a possible role in tumour progression.
Hyaluronic acid (HA) binds to cell-surface receptors such as CD44, and seems to be involved in cell adhesion, motility, and tumor progression in brain.
Recent studies have shown that some variant forms of CD44, a transmembrane glycoprotein expressed on various cell surfaces, might be involved in tumor progression or tumor metastasis.
Higher expression of CD44 in the tumor periphery than in the core was correlated with a highly invasive feature on MRI and was associated with early tumor progression and worse survival, whereas lower expression of CD44 in the tumor periphery corresponded to low invasion and was associated with longer survival.