Beta 2-microglobulin (β<sub>2</sub>m) is a component of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I molecule, which presents tumor antigens to T lymphocytes to trigger cancer cell destruction.
We found that B2M was overexpressed in ovarian borderline and malignant tumours compared with benign tumours and normal controls, but was not associated with age, tumour size, lymph node metastasis and clinical stage.
In this study, we investigated a possible mechanism of β2-microglobulin (β2M) function in cancer metastases in vitro, using a human ovarian carcinoma cell line.
Our previous study demonstrated that alterations in the β2m gene are frequently associated with cancer immune escape leading to metastatic progression and resistance to immunotherapy.
There was a different expression pattern among cancer cell lines for HLA class I heavy chain (HLA-HC), β2 microglobulin, Tapasin, TAP-1, TAP-2, LMP-7 and LMP-10.
NormFinder also identified B2M as the best reference gene for 'stomach cancer cell lines', RPL29-B2M for 'all stomach tissues', and 18S rRNA-ACTB for 'all stomach cell lines and tissues'.
Because beta 2-microglobulin also is selectively expressed by most tumors in this subset, we examined whether a combination of the antibodies HBA 71 and anti-beta 2-microglobulin could facilitate the differentiation of the two malignancies.