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Review

Trophinin: What embryo implantation teaches us about human cancer.

Michiko N. Fukuda, Kazuhiro Sugihara and Jun Nakayama

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Aggressive behaviors of trophoblasts during embryo implantation resemble to those of malignant tumor cells. As much as 20-40% of all epithelial cancers in humans express human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), a marker for trophoblast. Therefore it is not surprising if some mechanisms are shared by cancer and trophoblast. However, the molecular basis of human embryo implantation is not well understood due to difficulties in studying the process in humans. Mechanisms of human embryo implantation are unique, as are features of trophoblastic cancer. This review describes trophinin, a cell adhesion/signaling protein, and its associated proteins, bystin and tastin, the proteins potentially involved in human embryo implantation, and presents examples of trophinin-expressing cancers.

Authors

Michiko N. Fukuda

Cancer Research Center,Burnham Institute for Medical Research, La Jolla, California, USA.

Kazuhiro Sugihara

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology,Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu City, Japan.

Jun Nakayama

Department of Molecular Pathology,Shinshu University Graduate School of Medicine, Matsumoto, Japan.

This is an open-access article

 Download PDF

If the document does not open, please right-click on the link (control-click on a Macintosh) and select the option to save the file to disk.