EXPRESSION OF CD44 ABNORMAL TRANSCRIPTS IN HUMAN GASTRIC CARCINOMAS

Twenty gastric carcinoma cases were studied for the detection of CD44 aberrant transcripts using a cDNA/PCR/blot-hybridization technique whi ch can detect splice variants containing an aberrant exon 11 of the CD 44 gene. All the tumor tissues as well as their metastatic foci demons trated overexpression of CD44 splice variants of more than 1.0 kbp tha n corresponding normal gastric mucosas. Six out of nine (66.7%) well-d ifferentiated or intestinal type gastric cancers overexpressed more th an three aberrant transcripts, whereas ten out of eleven (90.9%) poorl y differentiated or diffuse type cancers overexpressed single or two l ower molecular weight variants. These results indicate that the detect ion of CD44 transcription variants can serve as a powerful tool for th e diagnosis of gastric cancer. It is also suggested from the differenc e in variant expression pattern that well-differentiated type and poor ly differentiated type gastric carcinomas have different genetic pathw ays.