The expression characteristic of LAT-1 in GC was significantly associated with clinicopathologic features such as tumor size, lymph node metastasis, local invasion and TNM stage.
When tumors were graded as positive if staining indicating a plasma membrane expression of LAT1 protein made up more than 10% of the tumor, the frequency of this membrane expression was found to be associated with tumor histology, differentiation grade, pathologic stage, T classification, pleural invasion, lymph-vessel invasion, and overall survival rate.
All patients underwent (18)F-FAMT PET prior to resection of the tumor, and immunohistochemical staining of the resected tumors were performed to compare the (18)F-FAMT uptake and LAT1 expression.
Because of the high level of expression of LAT1 in tumor cells, LAT1 inhibitors would be useful for anticancer therapy in suppressing tumor growth without affecting normal tissues.
Furthermore, the CD98(high) subpopulation expresses high levels of cell cycle control and DNA repair genes, while the CD98(low) fraction shows expression patterns that represent the more differentiated cells forming the bulk of the tumor.
Orthotropic C6 and U87 tumors were clearly visualized with high tumor to brain ratios at 60 min post-injection, corroborating with tumorL-type amino acid transporter 1 (LAT-1) expression levels.