In this study, we investigated the presence of B-raf and K-ras mutations in 94 consecutive cases of primary colon adenocarcinoma in correlation with the immunohistochemical expression of total and activated ERK and the expression of mismatch repair proteins (MMR) hMLH1 and hMSH2 as well as their correlations with standard clinicopathological parameters.
While TRAIL was capable of triggering an anti-apoptotic signaling leading to significant early ERK-mediated transcriptional up-regulation of Mcl-1 in selected colon adenocarcinoma cell lines, none or very limited effects were demonstrated in cell lines derived from colon lymph node metastasis or fetal colon, respectively.