An indicator of cancer: downregulation of monoamine oxidase-A in multiple organs and species

Identifying consistent changes in cellular function that occur in multiple types of cancer could revolutionize the way cancer is treated. Previous work has produced promising results such as the identification of p53. Recently drugs that affect serotonin reuptake were shown to reduce the risk of col...

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Published inBMC genomics Vol. 9; no. 1; p. 134
Main Authors Rybaczyk, Leszek A, Bashaw, Meredith J, Pathak, Dorothy R, Huang, Kun
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England BioMed Central Ltd 20.03.2008
BioMed Central
BMC
Subjects
Animals
Cancer
Down-Regulation
Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic
Genetic aspects
Humans
Mice
Monoamine oxidase
Monoamine Oxidase - genetics
Monoamine Oxidase - metabolism
Neoplasms - enzymology
Neoplasms - genetics
Organ Specificity
Rats
Risk factors
Serotonin - metabolism
Species Specificity
Zebrafish
United States
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Summary:Identifying consistent changes in cellular function that occur in multiple types of cancer could revolutionize the way cancer is treated. Previous work has produced promising results such as the identification of p53. Recently drugs that affect serotonin reuptake were shown to reduce the risk of colon cancer in man. Here, we analyze an ensemble of cancer datasets focusing on genes involved in the serotonergic pathway. Genechip datasets consisting of cancerous tissue from human, mouse, rat, or zebrafish were extracted from the GEO database. We first compared gene expression between cancerous tissues and normal tissues for each type of cancer and then identified changes that were common to a variety of cancer types. Our analysis found that significant downregulation of MAO-A, the enzyme that metabolizes serotonin, occurred in multiple tissues from humans, rodents, and fish. MAO-A expression was decreased in 95.4% of human cancer patients and 94.2% of animal cancer cases compared to the non-cancerous controls. These are the first findings that identify a single reliable change in so many different cancers. Future studies should investigate links between MAO-A suppression and the development of cancer to determine the extent that MAO-A suppression contributes to increased cancer risk.
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ISSN:1471-2164
1471-2164
DOI:10.1186/1471-2164-9-134