Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0178874 (tumor progression)
 40,807 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A transmembrane protein (TMEM) is a type of protein that spans biological membranes. Many of them extend through the lipid bilayer of the plasma membrane but others are located to the membrane of organelles. The TMEM family gathers proteins of mostly unknown functions. Many studies showed that TMEM expression can be down- or up-regulated in tumor tissues compared to adjacent healthy tissues. Indeed, some TMEMs such as TMEM48 or TMEM97 are defined as potential prognostic biomarkers for lung cancer. Furthermore, experimental evidence suggests that TMEM proteins can be described as tumor suppressors or oncogenes. TMEMs, such as TMEM45A and TMEM205, have also been implicated in tumor progression and invasion but also in chemoresistance. Thus, a better characterization of these proteins could help to better understand their implication in cancer and to allow the development of improved therapy strategies in the future. This review gives an overview of the implication of TMEM proteins in cancer.
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PMID:TMEM Proteins in Cancer: A Review. 3057 87

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the second leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide despite the availability of diverse treatment strategies. Much research progress has been made regarding immunotherapy but the effects remain unsatisfactory, highlighting the urgent need for novel immune-related therapy targets. In recent years, more and more studies have pointed out the associations between certain transmembrane (TMEM) family proteins and tumor progression, but the role of TMEM205 remains unclear. In this study, we analyzed the RNA-seq and clinical data of 371 patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and found significant differential expression of TMEM205 between normal and tumor tissues (P < 0.001). Low TMEM205 expression was also found to be independently associated with poor overall survival (OS; p = 0.032) and poor disease-specific survival (DSS; p = 0.002) in multivariate Cox regression analyses. RNA-seq and clinical data from hepatocellular carcinoma patients in the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) also showed significant differential expression of TMEM205 (P < 0.001) and association between low TMEM205 expression and poor survival (P < 0.001). We also used the Estimate the Proportion of Immune and Cancer cells (EPIC) tool to estimate the proportions of various immune cells in the tumor tissues. A correlation analysis was conducted, and TMEM205 expression in tumor tissues was found to be significantly associated with the proportion of macrophages (Pearson r = 0.45, p < 0.0001). A negative correlation was found between TMEM205 expression and M2 macrophage markers (CD163, EGR2, and MS4A4A) and between TMEM205 expression and regulatory T cell (Treg) markers (CCR8, STAT5B, and IL2RA), while a positive correlation was found between TMEM205 expression and the proportion of CD8+ T cells (Pearson r = 0.26, p < 0.0001). In conclusion, TMEM205 might improve HCC patients' prognosis by reducing the levels of immunosuppressive cells (M2 macrophages and Tregs) and facilitating the infiltration of cytotoxic T cells into the tumor microenvironment. Therefore, TMEM205 has potential as a prognostic biomarker and immunotherapy agent in combination therapy regimens for HCC.
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PMID:TMEM205 Is an Independent Prognostic Factor and Is Associated With Immune Cell Infiltrates in Hepatocellular Carcinoma. 3319 90