Identification of diagnostic tumour markers and therapeutic targets in testicular tumours

Abstract

Today, tumour classification has been expanded due to immunohistochemical and molecular-pathological analyses due to corresponding patterns/profiles of protein and gene expression. The latter analyses often include growth factors and their ligands, intracellular signalling pathways, DNA-binding proteins, and oncogenes and suppressor genes, thus functionally including primarily the regulation of growth including angiogenesis and apoptosis as well as the induction of metastases to adhesion and migration disorders. Based on observations that testicular tumours often show microcalcifications, possibly due to impaired calcium metabolism, we focused on calcium-dependent transmembrane proteins, particularly cadherins, in the search for new tumour markers and therapeutic targets. N‑cadherin is expressed differently in the various subtypes of germ cell tumours and is useful in N‑cadherin-positive germ cell tumours as anovel therapeutic targeting structure, particularly in cisplatin resistance, due to functional analysis. In the tumours of the sex cord stroma beta-catenin and the transcription factor SOX-9 give aclear classification of these tumours. Thus, morphological investigations prove to be pilot experiments to purposefully narrow the spectrum of functionally important proteins and thus to establish promising new differential diagnostic markers or target structures.