%0 Journal Article
%T Differential expression of MUC genes in endometrial and cervical tissues and tumors
%A Vidya Hebbar
%A Gautam Damera
%A Goverdhan P Sachdev
%J BMC Cancer
%D 2005
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2407-5-124
%X Slot blot techniques were used to study the MUC gene expression and quantitation.Of the five-mucin genes studied, MUC1, MUC5B and MUC8 showed high expression levels in the normal and cancerous endometrial and cervical tissues, MUC2 and MUC5AC showed considerably lower expression. Statistically, higher levels of MUC1, MUC5B and MUC8 were observed in endometrial adenocarcinomas compared to normal tissues. In contrast, only MUC1 levels increased with no significant changes in expression of MUC5B and MUC8 in cervical tumors over normal cervical tissues.Endometrial tumors showed increased expression of MUC1, MUC5B and MUC8 over normal tissues. Only MUC1 appears to be increase, in cervical tumors. All the studied tissues showed high and consistent expression of MUC8 mRNA. Low to neglible levels of MUC2 and MUC5AC were observed in all studied endometrial and cervical tissues.Mucins are high molecular weight glycoprotein components of mucus (> 250 kDa), which protect and lubricate the epithelial surfaces of the respiratory, gastrointestinal and reproductive tracts in the body [1]. Mucins are heavily glycosylated (40¨C80%) and the oligosaccharides are attached through O-glycosidic linkages to the hydroxyl group of serine and threonine in the protein backbone [2,3]. The striking feature of nearly all mucin genes isolated thus far is the presence of repeat sequences that are either tandem in nature as in the case of MUC1 [4] or slightly imperfect repeats as in the case of MUC8 [5]. In general, the repeats are found in the central portion of the protein backbone, which are flanked by unique regions. Mucins have been classified as either membrane-bound or secretory depending on the presence of a putative trans-membrane region.Altered mucin secretions and/or MUC gene expression patterns have been implicated in several cancerous conditions, such as gastric carcinomas [6-10], colorectal carcinomas [11-13], breast cancers [14-16] esophageal carcinomas [17], pancreatic tumors [18-20]
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/5/124