MUC4 mucin expression in human pancreatic tumours is affected by organ environment: the possible role of TGFβ2

MUC4 is highly expressed in human pancreatic tumours and pancreatic tumour cell lines, but is minimally or not expressed in normal pancreas or chronic pancreatitis. Here, we investigated the aberrant regulation of MUC4 expression in vivo using clonal human pancreatic tumour cells (CD18/HPAF) grown either orthotopically in the pancreas (OT) or ectopically in subcutaneous tissue (SC) in the nude mice. Histological examination of the OT and SC tumours showed moderately differentiated and anaplastic morphology, respectively. The OT tumour cells showed metastases to distant lymph nodes and faster tumour growth (

Differential expression of MUC genes in endometrial and cervical tissues and tumors

BACKGROUND: Mucin glycoprotein's are major components of mucus and are considered an important class of tumor associated antigens. The objective of this study was to investigate the expression of human MUC genes (MUC1, MUC2, MUC5B, MUC5AC and MUC8) in human endometrium and cervix, and to compare and quantitate the expression of MUC genes in normal and cancerous tissues. METHODS: Slot blot techniques were used to study the MUC gene expression and quantitation. RESULTS: Of the five-mucin genes studied, MUC1, MUC5B and MUC8 showed high expression levels in the normal and cancerous endometrial and cervical tissues, MUC2 and MUC5AC showed considerably lower expression. Statistically, higher levels of MUC1, MUC5B and MUC8 were observed in endometrial adenocarcinomas compared to normal tissues. In contrast, only MUC1 levels increased with no significant changes in expression of MUC5B and MUC8 in cervical tumors over normal cervical tissues. CONCLUSION: Endometrial tumors showed increased expression of MUC1, MUC5B and MUC8 over normal tissues. Only MUC1 appears to be increase, in cervical tumors. All the studied tissues showed high and consistent expression of MUC8 mRNA. Low to neglible levels of MUC2 and MUC5AC were observed in all studied endometrial and cervical tissues