Identification and characterisation of novel cancer testis antigens in human cancer cells

Electronic versions

Documents

  • Naif Alsiwiehri

Abstract

Carcinogenesis is a multi-step process which involves genomic instability and abnormal cellular growth over long period of time which eventually develop tumour. Cancer testis antigens consistently reported in many types of cancer which suggest its oncogenic role. But, it’s functional role in cancer still unknown and need further investigation. Also, cancer testis antigens might be used as potential targets for cancer immunotherapy due to their main presence in normal testis cells and abnormally exist in several types of human cancer. Their aberrant expression in cancer makes them useful to target human malignancies by immunotherapy. TEX19 one of the novel CT gene was identified in this study. TEX19 show interesting expression pattern due to its confined in normal testis and expressed in many cancer tissues. This expression may indicate the oncogenic activity of TEX19 gene in somatic tissue. Thus, the possible approach to use this gene as target for cancer immunotherapy and cancer prognosis and diagnosis. In addition, TEX19 might play a role in stemness state, this was observed in TEX19 depleted cells, the stem cell markers genes such as OCT$, NANOG, SOX2 were affected after the knockdown of TEX19. However, Tex19 was not affected after differentiating NT-2 cancer cells using Retinoic acid and HMBA. We also studied the relation between TEX19 and transposable genetic elements by knockdown TEX19 in NT-2 and A2780 cancer cells. The qRT-PCR results show that human ERVK family gene expression was affected by TEX19 depletion. Moreover, our RNA sequencing data of TEX19 depleted sample and qRT-PCR analysis reveal the influence of TEX19 depletion on some differentially expressed genes. Interestingly, these genes were upregulated and down regulated after the depletion of TEX19 in four types of human cancer cell lines.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
Supervisors/Advisors
Thesis sponsors
  • Government of Saudi Arabia
Award dateJan 2017