Periostin tied to colon cancer metastasis

Periostin, a protein originally isolated from osteoblasts, appears to promote tumor metastasis in colon cancer, US and Chinese researchers report in the April issue of Cancer Cell.

“Under normal conditions periostin does not cause cell proliferation. However, in colon cancer it is intimately associated with the later stages of tumor progression,” senior investigator Dr. Xiao-Fan Wang told Reuters Health,Dr. Wang of Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina and colleagues came to this conclusion after conducting a variety of in vitro studies with human colon tumor cells and in vivo studies with nude miceThey found that periostin was overexpressed in 80% of examined human colon cancers and expression was highest in metastatic tumors.”A colon cancer cell line with a low metastatic potential engineered to overexpress periostin displayed a striking phenotype of greatly accelerated tumor metastatic grow as xenographs in the animal model system of metastasis,” they write in their paper.The agent “dramatically enhanced” tumor growth by preventing stress-induced apoptosis in the cancer cells and by increasing endothelial cell survival and thus angiogenesis. In molecular studies, the researchers established that periostin exerted its effect via the Akt/PKB pathway.Given the agent’s role in cancer survival and metastasis, Dr. Wang concluded that periostin may provide “a key therapeutic target to control the growth of colon cancer.”(Source: Cancer Cell 2004;5:329-339: Reuters Health: April 2004: Oncolink)