title: A novel transmembrane serine protease (TMPRSS3) overexpressed in pancreatic cancer.
abstract: We report the characterization of a novel serine protease of the chymotrypsin family, recently isolated by cDNA-representational difference analysis, as a gene overexpressed in pancreatic cancer. The 2.3-kb mRNA of the gene, named TMPRSS3, is strongly expressed in a subset of pancreatic cancer and various other cancer tissues, and its expression correlates with the metastatic potential of the clonal SUIT-2 pancreatic cancer cell lines. The deduced polypeptide sequence consists of 437 amino acids and exhibits all of the structural features characteristic of serine proteases with trypsin-like activity. TMPRSS3 is membrane bound with a NH2-terminal signal-anchor sequence and a glycosylated extracellular region containing the serine protease domain. Thus, TMPRSS3 is a novel membrane-bound serine protease overexpressed in cancer, which may be of importance for processes involved in metastasis formation and tumor invasion.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine I, University of Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wallrapp
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hähnel
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Müller-Pillasch
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Burghardt
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Iwamura
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ruthenbürger
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Lerch
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Adler
authors.forename: T M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Gress
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001483:Base Sequence; D015153:Blotting, Western; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D015971:Gene Expression Regulation, Enzymologic; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D015723:Gene Library; D006801:Humans; D008565:Membrane Proteins; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009363:Neoplasm Proteins; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics; D019151:Peptide Library; D012697:Serine Endopeptidases / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000235:genetics*; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
chemical_list: D008565:Membrane Proteins; D009363:Neoplasm Proteins; D019151:Peptide Library; D012697:Serine Endopeptidases; C409042:TMPRSS3 protein, human