Progenitor Marker CD133 mRNA Is Elevated in Peripheral Blood of Cancer Patients with Bone Metastases

Abstract

Purpose: We examined whether RNA expression of CD133, a surface molecule expressed on progenitors from hematopoietic and endothelial lineages, and CD146, a pan-endothelial marker, are increased in the blood of cancer patients and whether these factors correlate with patient characteristics and are predictive factors of survival. Experimental Design: We developed a real-time quantification method (nuclear acid sequence-based amplification) to determine expression of CD146 and CD133 mRNA in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 131 progressive cancer patients, 37 healthy volunteers, and 5 patients who received granulocyte colony-stimulating factor. Overall survival and other clinicopathologic variables were obtained. Cox proportional hazards studies were done. Results: We show that patients with metastatic disease have a significant increase in CD133 mRNA (P = 0.03), specifically patients with bone metastasis (P < 0.001). Cancer patients with high CD133 mRNA expression, using a defined cutoff value, show a decreased survival compared with patients with low or undetectable CD133 expression (21% versus 45% cumulative survival, respectively, after 20 months; P = 0.01). Among patients with metastasis to the bone, cumulative survival was 22%, compared with 61% for patients with high or low CD133 levels (P = 0.004). Multivariate analysis showed that CD133 expression is an independent predictor for overall survival in patients with bone metastases. CD146 mRNA was not increased in patients with cancer, nor did it correlate with clinical variables or survival. Conclusion: CD133, but not CD146, mRNA expression is increased in cancer patients with metastatic disease, specifically with bone metastasis. In addition, CD133 mRNA expression seems to be an independent prognostic factor for overall survival.

CD133+ circulating haematopoietic progenitor cells predict for response to sorafenib plus erlotinib in non-small cell lung cancer patients

“…Other studies also suggest that high numbers of circulating CD133 þ /HPCs are related to a worse outcome in cancer patients. CD133 mRNA from PB cells, which is predominantly derived from the HPCs was shown to be an independent prognostic factor for patient survival (Mehra et al, 2006).…”

Oncolytic adenoviruses targeted to cancer stem cells

“…One of the common markers found on most of the CSCs identified to date, including glioblastoma, hepatocellular, colon, prostate, and pancreatic cancers, is CD133 (35,36). CD133 is a highly conserved antigen that is the human homolog of mouse Prominin-1 and a five-transmembrane domain cell surface glycoprotein expressed by untransformed hematopoietic and neural progenitor cells.…”

Frequency and pattern of expression of the stem cell marker CD133 have strong prognostic effect on the surgical outcome of colorectal cancer patients

“…However, this protein has been identified as a potential cancer stem cell marker in the brain ONCOLOGY REPORTS 24: 1201-1212 Frequency and pattern of expression of the stem cell marker CD133 have strong prognostic effect on the surgical outcome of colorectal cancer patients (17), colon (9,10), prostate (18), and pancreas (19). Although the biological function of CD133 remains largely unknown (16), the percentage of CD133-positive cancer stem cells clinically correlates with tumor aggressiveness (17) and poor prognosis (20,21). In CRC, CD133 is considered to be the most important surface marker of cancer stem cells because subpopulations of CD133-positive colon cancer cells have shown increased tumorigenic potential in transplantation studies in vitro and in vivo (10,11).…”