Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors and EMT Behavior Are Driven by the CSC Marker DCLK1

In conclusion, robust and ubiquitous expression of DCLK1 was first demonstrated here in human PNET tissue specimens and cells. DCLK1 characterized the PNET cell behavior, inducing p-FAK/SLUG-mediated EMT. These findings suggest the possibility of developing novel therapeutic strategies against PNETs by targeting DCLK1.
Implications: Evidence here reveals that human PNETs diffusely and robustly express the cancer stem cell marker DCLK1, which drives SLUG-mediated EMT, and suggests that NETs share biological features for druggable targets with other tumors, including neuroblastoma that also highly expresses DCLK1. Mol Cancer Res; 15(6); 744–52. ©2017 AACR.

Source: Molecular Cancer Research - June 1, 2017 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Ikezono, Y., Koga, H., Akiba, J., Abe, M., Yoshida, T., Wada, F., Nakamura, T., Iwamoto, H., Masuda, A., Sakaue, T., Yano, H., Tsuruta, O., Torimura, T. Tags: Signal Transduction Source Type: research