African Americans with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma exhibit gender differences in Kaiso expression

Jacqueline Jones, Angana Mukherjee, Balasubramanyam Karanam, Melissa Davis, Jesse Jaynes, R. Renee Reams, Windy Dean-Colomb, Clayton Yates

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

Kaiso, a bi-modal transcription factor, regulates gene expression, and is elevated in breast, prostate, and colon cancers. Depletion of Kaiso in other cancer types leads to a reduction in markers for the epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) (Jones et al., 2014), however its clinical implications in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDCA) have not been widely explored. PDCA is rarely detected at an early stage but is characterized by rapid progression and invasiveness. We now report the significance of the subcellular localization of Kaiso in PDCAs from African Americans. Kaiso expression is higher in the cytoplasm of invasive and metastatic pancreatic cancers. In males, cytoplasmic expression of Kaiso correlates with cancer grade and lymph node positivity. In male and female patients, cytoplasmic Kaiso expression correlates with invasiveness. Also, nuclear expression of Kaiso increases with increased invasiveness and lymph node positivity. Further, analysis of the largest PDCA dataset available on ONCOMINE shows that as Kaiso increases, there is an overall increase in Zeb1, which is the inverse for E-cadherin. Hence, these findings suggest a role for Kaiso in the progression of PDCAs, involving the EMT markers, E-cadherin and Zeb1.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)513-522
Number of pages10
JournalCancer Letters
Volume380
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 1 2016
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • EMT markers
  • Kaiso
  • Pancreatic ductal carcinoma

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Oncology
  • Cancer Research

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