protein CD9

Mesothelioma patients whose cells express a protein called CD9 are likely to do better and live longer than those who don’t produce this special protein. That news comes out of a laboratory at Hiroshima University in Japan. CD9 is a cell surface glycoprotein involved in cell growth, adhesion and mobility. Its expression is associated with several other types of cancer. To measure the impact CD9 expression has on mesothelioma cells, a research team at the Institute of Biomedical and Health Sciences in Hiroshima first measured what happened to mesothelioma cells in the lab when CD9 expression was knocked down through gene manipulation. In those cell samples, knockdown of CD9 resulted in more mobility for the cancer cells. The team then examined…