thymosin and Neoplasms--Squamous-Cell

Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) is known to be a multifunctional growth factor that is overexpressed in several types of malignancies. In this study, effects of CTGF gene overexpression on the phenotypes of oral squamous cell carcinoma cells were investigated by using a cell line with undetectable endogenous CTGF expression. Surprisingly, our results indicated that CTGF-overexpressed clones were characterized by attenuated cell growth and less potent tumorigenicity, with coincidental downregulation of prothymosin alpha gene. Although CTGF is known to promote cell proliferation in mesenchymal cells, our present results suggest that CTGF acts as a negative regulator of the cell growth in oral squamous cell carcinoma possibly through its interaction with growth modifiers inside the cell.

Topics: Animals; Cell Division; Connective Tissue Growth Factor; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; Humans; Immediate-Early Proteins; Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins; Mice; Mice, Nude; Mouth Neoplasms; Neoplasm Transplantation; Neoplasms, Squamous Cell; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; Protein Precursors; RNA, Messenger; Thymosin; Tumor Cells, Cultured