Based on recent promising data that showed reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analyses for cytokeratin 19 (CK-19) expression in peripheral-blood or bone marrow samples to be a rapid and highly sensitive method for detection of hematogenous tumor dissemination in patients with breast and prostate cancer, we evaluated the specificity of this assay system in lung cancer patients and a large number of healthy controls.
In addition, we evaluated the capacity of cytokeratin 19 (CK19)- and a novel epidermal growth factor receptor (EGF-R)-specific reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for monitoring tumor cell depletion.
We have used the keratin 19 promoter to target the expression of the polyomavirus (Py) large T-antigen, an immortalizing oncogene known to bind to the tumor suppressor retinoblastoma gene product, to epithelial cells.
None of the other pertinent clinicopathological features, including the disease extent and the histopathologic types of the tumors, were related to the expression of K19 in PB.
Only cytokeratin 19 showed significant correlation with increasing tumor size (P = 0.006). mRNA expression for cytokeratin 8 was significantly higher in node-positive compared with node-negative disease (P = 0.02).
Quantitative relationship of the circulating tumor burden assessed by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction for cytokeratin 19 mRNA in peripheral blood of colorectal cancer patients with Dukes' stage, serum carcinoembryonic antigen level and tumor progression.
We determined the circulating tumor burden in BC patients by semiquantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction using carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and cytokeratin 19 (CK19) mRNAs as molecular markers.
Our purpose was to determine whether peripheral blood biomarkers MUC1 and CK19 could be used to complement imaging studies in differentiating benign from malignant indeterminate pulmonary nodules or masses detected on computed tomography CT. One hundred and eighteen patients had a thoracic CT and blood drawn for tumor marker reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis.
Evaluation of cytokeratin-19 mRNA as a tumor marker in the peripheral blood of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients receiving concurrent chemoradiotherapy.
Results showed that 21.4% of the 84 patients with cervical carcinoma had CK19-mRNA-positive cells in the blood, in comparison with 5.7% of the 35 patients with benign gynecological tumors and 0% of the 28 healthy controls (P = 0.037 and 0.006, respectively).
The mechanism of this effect was through an immediate post-palpation release of circulating tumor emboli detected 2-3 min after palpation (P<0.01) by human cytokeratin 19 RT-PCR of extracted RNA from 300 microl of murine blood.
In a mouse peritoneal model of malignant mesothelioma, in vivo transfection of pK19-TK by cationic liposome and systemic administration of GCV inhibited the growth of peritoneal tumors.
To investigate the incidence of direct hematogenous spread of cancer cells in patients with early-stage breast cancer by studying the presence of occult tumorcytokeratin-19 (CK-19) mRNA(+) cells in the peripheral blood in relation to the status of sentinel (SLNs) and (ALNs) axillary lymph nodes.
Our results indicate that CK19, an intermediate fragment of the cytoskeleton, and other proteins showing differential expression, are likely to be intricately involved in intra- and intercellular molecular events driving the more aggressive tumor proliferation, invasion and metastasis associated with HER-2/neu-positive tumors.
All of the remaining six lymph nodes that were judged by the pathologist to contain tumor cells exhibited CK19 transcripts.Twenty-three patients had a pN0 status. qRT-PCR detected disseminated tumor cells in 13 (56%) of these pN0 patients.
Selected candidate genes (CAS, CCNE1, LGALS8, ITGbeta3, ATP1B1, FLIP, KRT7 and KRT19) were validated by real-time quantitative PCR analysis and show differential expression between LMPs and TOVs.
Depending on three major morphologic phenotypes of tumor cell xenotransplants (ductal (YAPC), ductal/solid (DAN-G, CAPAN-1), solid (PANC-1, MIA PaCa-2)), a decrease of CK7/CK19 was found, accompanied by an increase of CK8/18 and vimentin.
Among the proteins identified, 12 proteins (pigment epithelium derived factor, annexin A2 and A5, keratin 19 and 20, heat shock protein 27, smooth muscle protein 22 alpha, alpha-enolase, squamous cell carcinoma antigen 1 and 2, glutathione S-transferase, apolipoprotein a1) were previously known proteins involved in tumor and 21 proteins were newly identified in this study.
There was no correlation between the detection of CK-19 mRNA-positive cells in the peripheral blood and the various known pathologic and clinical prognostic factors; only overexpression of HER2 receptor (score 2+/3+) on the primary tumor was associated with a higher incidence of CK-19 mRNA-positive cell detection (P = .033).