These data suggest that a down-regulation of the PRL-3 gene is important in lung cancer metastasis and provide a new hypothesis of lung cancer metastases.
These studies establish an unexpected and unprecedented specificity in metastatic gene expression profiles: PRL-3 is apparently expressed in CRC metastases to any organ but is not expressed in metastases of other cancers to the same organs or in nonmetastatic CRCs.
Thus, the discovery that the expression of a protein tyrosine phosphatase, protein of regenerating liver-3 (PRL-3), is upregulated in colon cancer metastases provided an exciting indication that the altered regulation of specific protein tyrosine phosphorylation events and signaling pathways might characterize these metastatic cells and/or be key in promoting the tumor-to-metastasis transition in this, and perhaps other, cancers of epithelial origin.
The PRL-1, PRL-2, and PRL-3 phosphatases are prenylated protein tyrosine phosphatases with oncogenic activity that are proposed to drive tumor metastasis.