title: Diagnostic relevance of overexpressed mRNA of novel oncogene with kinase-domain (NOK) in lung cancers.
abstract: There have been no target molecules that have enabled us to diagnose lung cancer with high sensitivity and specificity even in its early clinical stages. A molecule termed novel oncogene with kinase-domain (NOK) was recently reported as a receptor protein tyrosine kinase that is expressed in some cancer cell lines and causes the transformation and progressive proliferation of normal cells. Therefore, NOK could be a possible candidate for a diagnostic marker for human cancers. We examined here, the degree of NOK mRNA expression in lung cancer tissues and compared it to that in non-cancerous tissues. More than 60% of non-cancerous samples (8/13) showed undetectable levels of mRNA. In contrast, NOK mRNA was detected in 97.6% (40/41) of lung cancer tissues, resulting in a sensitivity of 80.5% and a specificity of 92.3% that was estimated using the cutoff obtained from receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. Further, NOK mRNA expression was found to be elevated in 92.3% (12/13) of cancerous tissues when paired cancerous and non-cancerous tissues from identical patients were compared. There were no obvious correlations between clinicopathological factors and NOK mRNA expression; however, NOK mRNA was highly expressed even at the early clinical stages of the cancer. These results suggest that NOK mRNA might be a new tool to support the diagnosis of lung cancers, irrespective of the clinical stages.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Sapporo Medical University, School of Medicine, South-1, West-16, Chuo-Ku, Sapporo 060-8543, Japan.
authors.forename: Tomoko
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Amachika
authors.forename: Daisuke
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.forename: Ryosuke
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Moriai
authors.forename: Naoki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tsuji
authors.forename: Naoki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Watanabe
mesh_terms: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D002289:Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics*; D012334:RNA, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics*; D020794:Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinases / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D012334:RNA, Neoplasm; D020794:Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinases; C482299:STYK1 protein, human