Adversities observed in treatment of children with neoplastic disease based on new diagnostic markers and new prognostic factors. Both of them allow prognosis to be established for a single patient. The aim of our study was to examine the expression of CD44 adhesion molecule in different histologic types in a neuroblastoma group of tumours (35 cases of neuroblastoma from current files and archi...

OBJECTIVE To identify early changes in vascular gene expression mediated by CD44 that promote atherosclerotic disease in apolipoprotein E (apoE)-deficient (apoE-/-) mice. METHODS AND RESULTS We demonstrate that CD44 is upregulated and functionally activated in aortic arch in the atherogenic environment of apoE-/- mice relative to wild-type (C57BL/6) controls. Moreover, CD44 activation even in...

The purpose of this study was to investigate how CD44 impaired Akt phosphorylation, EGR-1 expression and cell proliferation. E6.1 Jurkat cells, which lack endogenous CD44 expression, were engineered to express CD44. Previously we showed that Akt is hypophosphorylated, EGR-1 expression is reduced and proliferation is impaired in CD44 expressing E6.1 Jurkat cells. The cell cycle was studied using...

CD44 exists in a variety of alternatively spliced isoforms that include variable numbers of additional exons from the membrane proximal domain (exons 6-14). Lymphocytes express high levels of a "hematopoietic" isoform (CD44H) with no additional variable exons. CD44H binds lymphocytes to postcapillary venules and promotes lymphocyte extravasation into nodal areas. Epithelial carcinomas also expr...

CD44 is a multistructural cell-surface glycoprotein that can theoretically generate close to 800 isoforms by differential alternative splicing. At present, several dozen isoforms are known. The polymorphic nature of CD44 might explain its multifunctionality and its ability to interact with many cell-surface and extracellular ligands, the principal one being hyaluronic acid (HA). Of the many CD4...

Mortality in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is high due to emergence of therapy resistance which results in local and regional recurrences that may have their origin in resistant cancer stem cells (CSCs) or cells with an epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) phenotype. In the present study, we investigate the possibility of using the cell surface expression of CD44 and epiderma...

At sites of chronic inflammation seen during infections, autoimmunity, graft-vs-host response, and cytokine therapy, endothelial cell injury is known to occur, the exact mechanism of which is unknown. In the current study we used IL-2-induced vascular leak syndrome (VLS) as a model to investigate whether cytotoxic lymphocytes use CD44 in mediating endothelial cell injury. Administration of IL-2...

CD44 plays a major role in multiple physiological processes, including cell-cell adhesion, cell-substrate interaction, lymphocyte homing, and tumor metastasis. It has been reported that highly expressed CD44 in certain types of tumors is associated with the hematogenic spread of tumor cells. The ability of CD44 to bind hyaluronan has been shown to correlate with tumor cell invasiveness, and it ...

Cervical carcinoma is the second most prevalent type of malignancy in females worldwide. The crucial etiological factors involved in the development of cervical carcinoma include infection with the papillomavirus, and the structural or functional mutation of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. CD44 refers to a multifunctional family of type I transmembrane proteins. These proteins have been i...

Previous work has shown that memory-phenotype CD44(hi) CD8(+) cells are controlled by a cytokine, interleukin (IL)-15. However, the dependency of CD44(hi) CD8(+) cells on IL-15 is partial rather than complete. Here, evidence is presented that CD44(hi) CD8(+) cells comprise a mixed population of IL-15-dependent and IL-15-independent cells. The major subset of CD122(hi) CD44(hi) CD8(+) cells is h...