Study of PSCA, a gastric cancer susceptibility gene

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 23501327
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Cancer epidemiology and prevention
• Research Institution: National Cancer Center Japan
• Principal Investigator: SAEKI Norihisa 独立行政法人国立がん研究センター, その他部局等, 主任研究員 (80466200)
• Project Period (FY): 2011-04-28 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 胃がん / 疾患感受性遺伝子 / がん抑制遺伝子 / 胆のうがん

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, it was revealed that the gene has the tumor suppressive function in gallbladder cancer as well as in gastric cancer, and that gene influences expression of genes related to inflammation and immune system. Moreover, the result of this study suggests that PSCA gene is suppressed in gastric epithelial cells by a T allele of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs2294008 which recruits a suppressive transcription factor YY1 to the PSCA promoter, predisposing to gastric cancer. In addition, exploration of novel expression sites of the gene detected PSCA in the gallbladder epithelium, islets of the pancreas and neuronal cells in the brain. Although the function of PSCA protein is far from being thoroughly explored at molecular level, new and important insight was obtained in this study.

Free Research Field

分子腫瘍学