Since serum CEA levels are elevated in patients with some malignant tumors including colorectal cancer, we applied the CEA promoter to chemo-radio-gene therapy, expecting tumor-specific expression of the CD gene.
In our preliminary clinical study, no significant differences were observed in sst2 mRNA levels between normal and tumor specimens in both colorectal (normal tissue 5.1 x 10(7)+/-2.0 x 10(7) molecules/microg total RNA, cancer tissue 9.7 x 10(7)+/-4.2 x 10(7)) and breast tumors (normal tissue 5.5 x 10(8)+/-2.0 x 10(8), cancer tissue 4.4 x 10(8)+/-3,7 x 10(8)).However, in colorectal cancer, sst2 mRNA values of subjects with high circulating carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels (>5 ng/ml) were statistically lower (2.3 x 10(7)+/-6.2 x 10(6) molecules/, microg total RNA; p<0.05) than those of subjects with low CEA concentration (1.4 x 10(8)+/-6.7 x 10(7)).
The presence or absence of cancer cells in the peritoneal tissues was confirmed by both hematoxylin-eosin staining and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) detection of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) mRNA. uPA and PAI-1 mRNA expression in these peritoneal tissues was determined by RT-PCR and the proteins were localized immunohistochemically.
We performed a phase I study of patients with advanced carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)-expressing malignancies followed by a phase II study of patients with resected hepatic metastases of colon cancer to assess safety and feasibility of administering autologous DC loaded with CEA mRNA.The immunizations were well tolerated.
Indeed, most current prognostic tests in cancer (carcinoembryonary antigen [CEA], prostate-specific antigen [PSA], CA 19-1, CA 125, alpha-fetoprotein [AFP], etc.) are based on the detection and quantification of single proteins in body fluids.
A novel RNA amplification system with transcription-reverse transcription concerted reaction (TRC) was introduced for quantitative detection of cancer-specific carcinoembryonic antigen messenger RNA.
In contrast, 4 of 13 (31%) patients with stage II T(3)N(0) cancer and 10 of 22 (45%) stage III patients with known metastases had lymph nodes with >/=1.0 x 10(2) CEA transcripts.
The prognostic variables used for the analysis included age, sex, tumor site, stage and degree of differentiation, preoperative and postoperative serum values of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and gastrin, cancer-related mortality, and survival.
Overexpression of carcinoembryonic antigen-related cell adhesion molecule (CEACAM) 6, a feature of this malignancy, is associated with resistance to anoikis and increased metastasis.
Then, we evaluated their ability to induce a CEA-specific immune response in vivo in HLA-A2.1/Kb transgenic mice and CEA-specific CTL response in vitro in HLA-A*0201+ healthy donors and HLA-A*0201+CEA+ cancer patients.
Those models have been used extensively in the study of overcoming host immune tolerance to CEA, a self, tumor-associated antigen, and the experimental findings have served as the rationale for the design of early clinical trials to evaluate CEA-based cancer vaccines.
A number of cancer-specific promoters have been reported, such as those of probasin, human telomerase reverse transcriptase, survivin, ceruloplasmin, HER-2, osteocalcin, and carcinoembryonic antigen.
It is predicted that human cancer immunotherapy using recombinant CEA expressed in this system would be more effective than the commercial protein which is usually prepared from bacterial or other heterologous expression systems.
Downregulation of carcinoembryonic antigen-related cell adhesion molecule (CEACAM1), a cell adhesion molecule with tumor suppressing properties has been observed in a high percentage of carcinomas of the endometrium and other malignancies.
CEA RT-PCR is useful as a prognostic marker for increased risk of cancer death and peritoneal carcinomatosis, and might be useful in the clinical setting for selecting patients for various adjuvant treatments.
First, we examined the relationship between tumor cell number and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) mRNA copy number using a PCR method with a cancer cell line (A549) in a serial dilution study.