This review summarizes recent progress in our understanding of the emerging role of SPAG9 in tumorigenesis and highlights the potential of SPAG9 as a novel target for cancer diagnosis and therapy.
High SPAG9 expression (>60% SPAG9 positive cells) was found to be significantly associated with superficial non-muscle invasive stage (P = 0.042) and low grade tumors (P = 0.002) suggesting SPAG9 putative role in early spread and tumorigenesis.
Recently, we reported an association of a novel cancer testis (CT) antigen, sperm-associated antigen 9 (SPAG9) expression in breast cancer clinical samples, indicating its potential role in carcinogenesis.
The present study was undertaken to determine the expression of the sperm-associated antigen 9 gene (SPAG9) as a possible biomarker in CRC, to investigate its correlation with humoral immune response and different stages and grades in CRC patients, and to explore its possible role in colon tumorigenesis in vitro and in an in vivo mouse model.