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Identification of a novel tumor transforming gene GAEC1 at 7q22 which encodes a nuclear protein and is frequently amplified and overexpressed in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Oncogene volume 26, pages 5877–5888 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

By comparative DNA fingerprinting, we identified a 357-bp DNA fragment frequently amplified in esophageal squamous cell carcinomas (ESCC). This fragment overlaps with an expressed sequence tag mapped to 7q22. Further 5′ and 3′-rapid amplification of cDNA ends revealed that it is part of a novel, single-exon gene with full-length mRNA of 2052 bp and encodes a nuclear protein of 109 amino acids (∼15 kDa). This gene, designated as gene amplified in esophageal cancer 1 (GAEC1), was located within a 1–2 Mb amplicon at 7q22.1 identified by high-resolution 1 Mb array- comparative genomic hybridization in 6/10 ESCC cell lines. GAEC1 was ubiquitously expressed in normal tissues including esophageal and gastrointestinal organs; with amplification and overexpression in 6/10 (60%) ESCC cell lines and 34/99 (34%) primary tumors. Overexpression of GAEC1 in 3T3 mouse fibroblasts caused foci formation and colony formation in soft agar, comparable to H-ras and injection of GAEC1-transfected 3T3 cells into athymic nude mice formed undifferentiated sarcoma in vivo, indicating that GAEC1 is a transforming oncogene. Although no significant correlation was observed between GAEC1 amplification and clinicopathological parameters and prognosis, our study demonstrated that overexpressed GAEC1 has tumorigenic potential and suggest that overexpressed GAEC1 may play an important role in ESCC pathogenesis.

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Acknowledgements

The work on GAEC1 was supported by an RGC grant (PolyU 5262/02 M, JT and GS) and array-CGH work was supported by an RGC Central Allocation Grant (CA06/07.SC03, QT) of Hong Kong.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathology, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    F B F Law, Y W Chen, K Y Wong, G Srivastava & J C O Tang

  2. Department of Clinical Oncology, Cancer Epigenetics Laboratory, State Key Laboratory in Oncology in South China, Sir YK Pao Center for Cancer, Hong Kong Cancer Institute and Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    J Ying & Q Tao

  3. Microarray Facility, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK

    C Langford

  4. Department of Surgery, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    P Y Lee, S Law & J Wong

  5. Lo Ka Chung Centre for Natural Anti-Cancer Drug Development, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

    C H Chui & J C O Tang

  6. Department of Anatomy, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    S W Tsao

  7. Department of Pathology, Griffith University, QLD, Australia

    K Y Lam

  8. Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

    R W L Cheung & J C O Tang

  9. State Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine and Molecular Pharmacology, Shenzhen, China

    J C O Tang

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  1. F B F Law
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  2. Y W Chen
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  3. K Y Wong
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  6. C Langford
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  8. S Law
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  11. S W Tsao
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  12. K Y Lam
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  15. J C O Tang
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Correspondence to J C O Tang.

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Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on the Oncogene website (http://www.nature.com/onc)

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Law, F., Chen, Y., Wong, K. et al. Identification of a novel tumor transforming gene GAEC1 at 7q22 which encodes a nuclear protein and is frequently amplified and overexpressed in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Oncogene 26, 5877–5888 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.onc.1210390

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