A group led by Dr. Dan Theodorescu at the University of Virginia has identified a novel biomarker for metastatic bladder cancer. They report these findings in the February 2009 issue of The American Journal of Pathology.
Bladder cancer is the fifth most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States. It commonly spreads to both the lung and the liver.
This metastasis significantly increases the risk of the disease; however, little is known about what causes either general or organ-specific metastasis.
Smith et al generated bladder cancer cell lines that specifically metastasized to either the lung or the liver. They then identified genes that were expressed in either the lung- or liver-specific line, as well as expressed genes that were shared between the two lines.
One such gene, Laminin V gamma 2 (LAMC2), was upregulated in both lung- and liver-specific cell lines, as well as in human tumors.
Dr. Theodorescu and colleagues "found genes whose expression differed based on the metastatic organ site from which they were derived, but also include a core metastatic signature shared between the sites. Several of these suggest therapeutic targets, and some, such as LAMC2, provide novel insights regarding the different routes of metastasis."
By American Journal of Pathology
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