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Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a highly aggressive tumour.1 Biomarker information for MPM is lacking and could prove useful for understanding MPM metastasis and proliferation, and for providing potential targets for therapy. The Dishevelled (Dvl) family of proteins are membrane-proximal signalling intermediates in the Wnt pathway.2 Moreover, we previously found that the Wnt pathway is activated in mesothelioma through Dvl3 overexpression.3 Excitatory amino acid transporters (EAATs) are known to function as glutamate carriers.4 5 Among the EAATs, EAAT1 is a ubiquitous subtype. Glutamine synthetase (GS) is another important enzyme that plays a role in the metabolic pathway of glutamate.6 In this study, we evaluated the possible association among expression levels of Dvl3, EAAT1 and GS in MPM to determine possible biomarkers and therapeutic targets.
Clinical data were obtained from 39 patients with primary MPM between 1997 and 2009. The diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma was confirmed by a review of the pathology reports in all cases. We also used human mesothelioma cell lines H28, 211H, H2052, MS-1, H290, H513 and human normal mesothelial cell line LP9 in this research.
Thirty-eight mesothelioma samples (seven that included adjacent normal pleural tissues to serve as controls) were obtained from the patients who were mentioned above. Samples for one patient were not available for EAAT1 staining, three …
Footnotes
Funding The present work was supported by NIH grant R01 CA140654-01A1 (LY).
Competing interests None.
Patient consent Obtained.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.