Identification of novel tissue-specific transcription arising from E-cadherin/CDH1 intron2: a novel protein isoform increases gastric cancer cell invasion and angiogenesis.

E-cadherin, a protein encoded by the CDH1 gene is the dominant epithelial cell adhesion molecule playing a crucial role in epithelial tissue polarity and structural integrity. The progression of 90% or more carcinomas is believed to be mediated by disruption of normal E-cadherin expression, subcellular localization or function. Despite the strong correlation between E-cadherin loss and malignancy the mechanism through how this occurs is not known in most sporadic and hereditary epithelial carcinomas. Previous works have shown the importance of CDH1 intron 2 sequences for proper gene and protein expression supporting the possibility of these being cis-modulators of E-cadherin expression/function. but when co-expressed it led to reduced cell-cell adhesiveness, increased invasion and angiogenesis. By expression array analysis, IFITM1 and IFI27 levels were found to be increased upon CDH1a overexpression. Importantly, CDH1a was found to be de novo expressed in gastric cancer cell lines when compared to normal stomach.

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Pinheiro H, Carvalho J, Oliveira P, Ferreira D, Pinto MT, Osório H, Licastro D, Bordeira-Carriço R, Jordan P, Lazarevic D, Sanges R, Stupka E, Huntsman D, Seruca R, Oliveira C