title: Are so-called cancer-testis genes expressed only in testis?
abstract: Cancer-testis (CT) antigens are a group of tumor-associated antigens with restricted expression in normal tissues except for testis and expression in a wide variety of tumor tissues. This pattern of expression makes them suitable targets for immunotherapy as well as potential biomarkers for early detection of cancer. However, some genes attributed to this family are now known to be expressed in other normal tissues which put their potential applications in immunotherapy and cancer detection under question. Here we analyzed expression of two previously known CT antigens, RHOXF2 and PIWIL2, in AML patients versus normal donors and found no significant difference in the expression of these genes between the two groups. As these two genes showed expression in normal leukocytes, their expression pattern seems to be wider than to be attributed to the CT gene family. Future research should focus on the expression profiles of so called CT antigens to find those with more testis specific expression.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Genetics, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran E-mail : ghafourifard@razi.tims.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Soudeh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ghafouri-Fard
authors.forename: Fatemeh
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Rezazadeh
authors.forename: Davood
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zare-Abdollahi
authors.forename: Mir Davood
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Omrani
authors.forename: Abolfazl
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Movafagh
mesh_terms: D060565:Argonaute Proteins / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D015470:Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics*; D008214:Lymphocytes / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D011379:Prognosis; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D013737:Testis / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D060565:Argonaute Proteins; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins; C486868:PIWIL2 protein, human; C471968:RHOXF2 protein, human; D012333:RNA, Messenger