Molecular genetic alterations of known protoncogenes and growth factors, e.g. c-kit and its ligand SCF as well as hst1 and c-myc, are likely to play a role in the development of testicular cancer.
Although most variants are cancer specific, pleiotropy has been observed for several variants, for example, variants at the 8q24 locus and breast, ovarian and prostate cancers or variants in KITLG in relation to hair color and testicular cancer.
We found that neither polymorphisms in several DNA repair genes nor alleles of several polymorphisms in the chromosomal of region 19q13.2-3, encompassing the genes ASE, ERCC1, RAI and XPD, were associated with risk of testicular cancer in Danish patients.
The expression of XPF was significantly higher in renal cancer than in bladder cancer and testicular cancer and correlated with the clinical characteristic of their chemotherapeutics sensitivity.
This study investigates the presence of SCF and c-kit protein in 32 orchiectomy specimens of patients with testicular cancer, in 5 specimens of normal testicular tissue and in three established non-seminomatous germ-cell cancer cell lines (H12.1, H32, 577ML) by an immunohistochemical approach.
In the current issue of the JCI, Poncette et al. used mice with human TCRαβ and HLA gene loci to discover CD4+ TCRs of optimal affinity for cancer testis antigen (CTA) NY-ESO-1.
To identify new CT antigens, we constructed an expression cDNA library from a melanoma cell line that expresses a wide range of CT antigens and screened the library with an allogeneic melanoma patient serum known to contain antibodies against two CT antigens, MAGE-1 and NY-ESO-1. cDNA clones isolated from this library identified four CT antigen genes: MAGE-4a, NY-ESO-1, LAGE-1, and CT7.