Relationship Between RKIP Protein Expression and Clinical Staging in Thyroid Carcinoma

Abstract

Raf-1 Kinase Inhibitory Protein (RKIP) belongs to a new class modulators of signalling cascades involved in maintaining of biological balance in many living organisms.RKIP targets and inhibits different kinases (Mitogen Activated Protein (MAP) kinase, G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) kinase and nuclear factor kappa B (NF-B) signaling pathways), and its loss is associated with progression of many solid cancers and development of metastasis. In this study we analyzed RKIP expression in follicular, papillary and undifferentiated thyroid carcinoma tissues from 54 patients by western blotting.We found that significantly reduced or lost RKIP expression was associated with lymph node (30 of 39 N1 tumors, 76.9%) and distant metastases (17 of 20 M1 tumors, 85%). No significant correlations were observed between RKIP expression and T-category, age, gender, histological type or tumor differentiation grade. Our results indicate that reduction of RKIP expression is a highly predictive factor for lymph node and distant metastasis in patients with thyroid carcinoma.

AUF1 and HuR: possible implications of mRNA stability in thyroid function and disorders

“…Our previously published data revealed that expression of several tumor suppressor genes (TSG) and tumor promoting factors, may serve as novel biomarkers for thyroid carcinoma. We demonstrated that down-regulation of CD9, CD82 and RKIP may reflect an increased in vivo metastatic potential of thyroid cancer cells [ 56 , 57 ]. Inversely, increased expression of S100A4 and ENO1 was correlated with increased proliferation and metastatic potential of thyroid carcinoma [ 58 ].…”