CD44 variant proteins have been implicated in tumor progression and metastasis, and a correlation with adverse prognosis has been demonstrated in a variety of human tumors.
CD44 is an adhesion molecule involved in many biological functions and has been described to play a role in tumor progression as well as in promotion of metastasis.
CD44/MyD88 co-expression was associated with tumor progression, metastasis, and recurrence in advanced EOC, and an independent prognostic factor for disease-free survival and overall survival.
CD44 is an adhesion protein involved in tumour progression, metastasis and stemness in different cancers; however, there has been controversies about the significance of CD44 expression in neuroblastoma and its relationship with tumour progression.
CD44 alternative splicing patterns differ between normal and malignant tissue, and accordingly, modulation of CD44 splicing has received the most attention in studies that have examined the role of CD44 in tumor progression.
A complex preclinical experimental set-up was established to separately test the different steps of tumour progression and the role of tumour microenvironment, respectively, focusing on the role of 'CD44' in this process.
A large variety of alternatively spliced CD44 variants are expressed by different tumors with possible implication for tumor progression, formation of metastasis and survival.
Additional subsets of CTCs within individual patients were characterized by divergent expression of genes involved in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (e.g., CDH2, MMPs, VIM, or ZEB1 and 2), DNA repair (RAD51), resistance to cancer therapy (e.g., AR, AR-V7, ERBB2, EGFR), cancer stemness (e.g., CD24 and CD44), activated signaling pathways involved in tumor progression (e.g., PIK3CA and MTOR) or cross talks between tumors and immune cells (e.g., CCL4, CXCL2, CXCL9, IL15, IL1B, or IL8).
Alternative splicing, which is often deregulated in cancer, can produce various isoforms of CD44 with properties that may have different tissue specific effects and therefore even diverse effects on cancer progression.
Although the anti-tumor activity of hyaluronan-oligosaccharides, a hyaluronan-CD44 interaction antagonist, is effective in sensitizing tumor cells to chemotherapeutic agents and reducing tumor growth in xenografts, hyaluronan-oligosaccharide alone was not effective in reducing tumor progression in Apc Min/+ mice.
Because human cutaneous melanoma is among the most aggressive human cancers, we explored expression of CD44 isoforms (CD44v) in lesions of melanocytic tumor progression.
Because the cell-surface HA receptor CD44 has been implicated in cancer progression, HA-CD44 interaction was then inhibited by incubation with an anti-CD44 antibody.
Cluster of differentiation 44 (CD44) is a receptor for hyaluronic acid (HA) and HA-binding has been proven to participate in various biological tumor activities, including tumor progression, metastasis and drug resistance.
Down-regulation of the cell-surface adhesion molecule CD44 has been suggested to play an important role in tumor progression and metastasis of prostate cancer.