To further characterize these systems, immunocytochemical analysis was performed for differentiation antigens (PEM 200 kDa, CEA, NCA 90 kDa), blood-group related antigens (Le(x), sTn), oncogenes and tumor suppressor gene products (Her-2/neu protein, p53), metastasis-related cathepsin D and CD63/5.01 Ag, and the chemokine monocyte chemotactic protein 1 (MCP-1).
These data suggest that NCA may be more useful as a tumor marker for colon carcinoma than CEA at the level of mRNA, and that transcriptions of the CEA and NCA genes might be regulated by some common mechanisms in malignant and nonmalignant tissues of the colon.