Abstract
CD44 is a well-recognized stem cell biomarker expressed in colon and gastric cancer. In order to identify whether CD44 mRNA could be used as a prognostic marker in colon and gastric cancer, bioinformatic analyses were used in this study. cBioPortal analysis and COSMIC analysis were used to explore the CD44 mutation. CD44 mRNA levels were evaluated by using SAGE Genie tools and Oncomine analysis. Kaplan-Meier Plotter was performed to identify the prognostic roles of CD44 mRNA in these two cancers. In this study, first, we found that low alteration frequency of CD44 mRNA in colon and gastric cancer. Second, the high CD44 mRNA level was found in colon and gastric cancer, and it correlated with a benign survival rate in gastric cancer. Third, CD4 and CD74 may be used as markers to predict the prognosis of colon and gastric cancer. However, the deep mechanism(s) of these results remains unclear, further studies have to be performed in the future.
Highlights
Cancer has become a major health problem and a large economic burden in China [1]
The pie chart that included the information of mutations of substitution missense, nonsense, synonymous, and insertion frame shift was generated by using Catalog of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC)
Many studies have shown the association of CD44 polymorphisms with cancer risk prediction and prognosis [12,13,14,15,16]
Summary
Cancer stem cell (CSC) hypothesis has been proposed to explain the pathogenesis of cancers [2]. To understand the exact biological features of CSC, the key thing is to isolate CSC from cancer cells. A series of new studies indicated that CD44 expression was elevated in cancer stem-like cells in many kinds of cancer [3]. CD44 protein was initially identified as the receptor for hyaluronic acid (HA), and involved in proliferation, differentiation and motility of both normal and cancer cells [5]. CD44 protein contains an N-terminal HA-binding link-homology module, stem region, transmembrane domain, and short C-terminal cytoplasmic domain (Figure 1A) [6]. Molecular weight of CD44 isoforms ranges from 85 kDa (CD44s, standard version) to 250 kDa (CD44 v3-v10) (Supplementary Figure S1) [8]
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