↓ Skip to main content

Membrane expression of thymidine kinase 1 and potential clinical relevance in lung, breast, and colorectal malignancies

Overview of attention for article published in Cancer Cell International, September 2018
Altmetric Badge

Citations

dimensions_citation
26 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
40 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Membrane expression of thymidine kinase 1 and potential clinical relevance in lung, breast, and colorectal malignancies
Published in
Cancer Cell International, September 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12935-018-0633-9
Pubmed ID
Authors

Evita G. Weagel, Weston Burrup, Roman Kovtun, Edwin J. Velazquez, Abigail M. Felsted, Michelle H. Townsend, Zachary E. Ence, Erica Suh, Stephen R. Piccolo, K. Scott Weber, Richard A. Robison, Kim L. O’Neill

Abstract

Lung, breast, and colorectal malignancies are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the world causing over 2.8 million cancer-related deaths yearly. Despite efforts to improve prevention methods, early detection, and treatments, survival rates for advanced stage lung, breast, and colon cancer remain low, indicating a critical need to identify cancer-specific biomarkers for early detection and treatment. Thymidine kinase 1 (TK1) is a nucleotide salvage pathway enzyme involved in cellular proliferation and considered an important tumor proliferation biomarker in the serum. In this study, we further characterized TK1's potential as a tumor biomarker and immunotherapeutic target and clinical relevance. We assessed TK1 surface localization by flow cytometry and confocal microscopy in lung (NCI-H460, A549), breast (MDA-MB-231, MCF7), and colorectal (HT-29, SW620) cancer cell lines. We also isolated cell surface proteins from HT-29 cells and performed a western blot confirming the presence of TK1 on cell membrane protein fractions. To evaluate TK1's clinical relevance, we compared TK1 expression levels in normal and malignant tissue through flow cytometry and immunohistochemistry. We also analyzed RNA-Seq data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to assess differential expression of the TK1 gene in lung, breast, and colorectal cancer patients. We found significant expression of TK1 on the surface of NCI-H460, A549, MDA-MB-231, MCF7, and HT-29 cell lines and a strong association between TK1's localization with the membrane through confocal microscopy and Western blot. We found negligible TK1 surface expression in normal healthy tissue and significantly higher TK1 expression in malignant tissues. Patient data from TCGA revealed that the TK1 gene expression is upregulated in cancer patients compared to normal healthy patients. Our results show that TK1 localizes on the surface of lung, breast, and colorectal cell lines and is upregulated in malignant tissues and patients compared to healthy tissues and patients. We conclude that TK1 is a potential clinical biomarker for the treatment of lung, breast, and colorectal cancer.

Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 40 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 40 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 7 18%
Student > Ph. D. Student 6 15%
Student > Master 4 10%
Other 3 8%
Unspecified 2 5%
Other 3 8%
Unknown 15 38%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 10 25%
Medicine and Dentistry 5 13%
Unspecified 2 5%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 2 5%
Immunology and Microbiology 1 3%
Other 6 15%
Unknown 14 35%