Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UNIPROT:O76050 (neu)
 3,969 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The antigens epithelial cell adhesion molecule (Ep-CAM), her-2/neu, and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) are potential T-cell targets in antigen-specific vaccination-based cancer therapy. We performed this study to evaluate whether a natural specific T-cell response against these tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) already exists in patients with colorectal carcinoma (CRC). We used the IFN-gamma ELISPOT assay to detect circulating TAA-reactive T cells directly ex vivo in unstimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells. We analyzed the T-cell response in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 22 HLA-A2-positive patients with CRC and 8 HLA-A2-positive healthy subjects against 3 HLA A2-restricted peptide epitopes of the TAAs Ep-CAM (GLKAGVIAV), her-2/neu (IISAVVGIL), and CEA (YLSGANLNL). Seven of 22 patients but none of the 8 healthy subjects had T cells specifically secreting IFN-gamma in response to one to three of these antigens (n = 4, Ep-CAM; n = 5, her-2/neu; n = 6, CEA). In three of the seven responding patients, TAA-reactive T cells were further characterized by flow cytometry. In all three patients, the majority of these T cells have a CD3+CD8+IFN-gamma+CD69+CD45RA+ phenotype, resembling activated effector-type T cells. T-cell responses occurred only in patients with metastatic disease (Dukes' stages C and D). The results of this study indicate that natural T-cell responses against TAAs occur in approximately one-half of CRC patients with involvement of lymph nodes or distant metastases, but not in CRC patients with disease confined to the intestinum.
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PMID:Natural T-cell response against MHC class I epitopes of epithelial cell adhesion molecule, her-2/neu, and carcinoembryonic antigen in patients with colorectal cancer. 1098 97

While HER2/neu receptor tyrosine kinase is involved in various malignancies, studies on colorectal adenocarcinoma (CRC) remain controversial. To try to clarify the role played by HER2/neu in CRC, sixty-seven CRC patients in Taiwan were analyzed. For this analysis, we used normalized dual-color fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and Photoshop-aided immunohistochemistry (IHC) between cancers and their autologous non-neoplastic epithelia. The results revealed that HER2/neu status was unrelated to age, sex, location and positive-nodal percentage. Intramucosal carcinomas had earlier HER2/neu protein upregulation than regional stromal invasion within Dukes' A, and had a gene level that had not risen yet. Both gene gains and protein increases were significant in later stages in regards to volumetric progression and nodal-metastatic Dukes' stage. Overall, there were 1.53-fold (gene) and 1.81-fold (protein) increases from non-neoplastic enterocytes to CRCs. The upregulating directions of gene (88%) and protein (88%) presented symmetric agreement. Most CRCs exhibited low to intermediate levels of HER2/neu overexpression with double-minute gene amplicons and cytosolic HER2/neu proteins. Normalized FISH and IHC showed high cubic-regression correlation, especially in Dukes' C. According to the correlation curve, the points with IHC index >2.41 and FISH ratio >1.22 defined the area where gene-amplification-dependent HER2/neu overexpression was present. Eleven (16%) patients had values above the cut-off point (IHC = 2.41 and FISH = 1.22), including 7 (10%) cases in cytosolic and 4 (6%) cases in membranous HER2/neu overexpressions. The results suggest that HER2/neu plays a crucial role in CRC tumorigenicity with gene-amplification-independent transcriptional activations early in the carcinogenesis, and gene-amplification-dependent overexpression later in the advanced stages. This indicates that HER2/neu can be a good biological marker for selecting patients that may improve under therapies that employ adequate HER2/neu-targeting strategies.
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PMID:Clinicopathological relevance of HER2/neu and a related gene-protein cubic regression correlation in colorectal adenocarcinomas in Taiwan. 1575 87