Association between favorable neuroblastoma and high expression of the novel metalloproteinase gene, nbla3145/XCE, cloned by differential screening of the full-length-enriched oligo-capping neuroblastoma cDNA libraries

Background. The biology of neuroblastoma (NBL) is at least partly regulated by neurotrophic factors and their receptors. Procedure. To identify novel NBL-related genes that affect growth, differentiation, and programmed cell death of the tumor, we constructed full-length-enriched cDNA libraries by o ligo-capping method. Results. Semi-quantitative and quantitative real-time RT-PCR showed that the nbla3145 gene was significantly highly expressed in favorable subset of NBL. The nucleotide sequence of nbla3145 revealed that it was a novel member of metatlloproteinase, endothelin-converting enzyme, and was the same gene recently reported as XCE. We also cloned nbla3145 bet a which was a novel truncated form of nbla3145 (or nbla3145 alpha). Conclus ions. Our results suggested that nbla3145/XCE plays an important role in re gulating growth and differentiation of NBL. Med. Pediatr. Oncol. 35:628-631 , 2000. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss. Inc.