Table 1.
CRIPTO detection in normal and cancerous tissue.
| Tissue Type | Expression in Normal Tissue | Expression in Cancer | Method of Detection |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blood | Detected in long-term HSCs [39] | - | RT-qPCR |
| Liver | Undetectable in healthy livers [35,40] Elevated expression in cirrhotic livers [35] |
Overexpressed correlates with poor prognosis in HCC [41] | Northern blot, RT-qPCR |
| Mammary | Detectable in the surrounding fat pad of developing rudiments [42] Peak epithelial expression during alveogenesis [43,44] |
Overexpressed in ~80% of invading breast cancers [45] | Immunohistochemistry RT-qPCR, Western |
| Muscle | Expressed in developing cardiac ventricles and outflow tracts [46] Upregulated in cardiac tissue post MI [35] Promotes skeletal muscle regeneration through myogenic differentiation of satellite cells and macrophage plasticity [37,47] |
- | RNA in situ, Immunohistochemistry, FACS |
| CNS | Expressed throughout the CNS in adult non-human primates and upregulated during infection with simian human immunodeficiency virus [48]. | Serum CRIPTO correlates with poor GBM prognosis. Localizes to perivascular tumor cells and endothelial cells in GMB [49] |
ELISA, immunohistochemistry, RT-PCR |
| Pancreas | Moderate and low expression in normal ductal and acinar cells respectively. Increased expression in both ductal and acinar cells in chronic pancreatitis [50]. | CRIPTO overexpression correlates with tumor stage [50] | Immunohistochemistry, RT-qPCR |
| Prostate | Low/undetectable level in healthy and BPH patient samples [51,52] | Metastatic lesions are characterized by CRIPTO overexpression [53] Overexpression in primary tumors predicts patient prognosis [51] |
RT-qPCR, immunohistochemistry |
| Skin | Undetectable in healthy murine skin, upregulated in TPA treated murine skin and benign murine papillomas [54] | Overexpressed in a subset of cutaneous melanomas. Inversely correlates with saracatinib efficacy [55]. | RT-qPCR |
| Renal | Low levels in adjacent non-tumor tissue relative to adjacent neoplastic lesions [56] | CRIPTO expression correlates with tumor aggressiveness and poor survival [56] | RT-qPCR |
| Colon | Undetectable in normal adult mucosa [57,58] | Detectable and independently correlates with poor prognosis [59] | Immunohistochemistry |
| Oral Squamous | Present sporadically at low levels in healthy tissue and widely expressed in dysplastic epithelia [60] | Overexpressed relative to homeostatic tissue [60] | Immunohistochemistry |
| Cervix | Low, variable expression across multiple healthy patient samples [61] | - | Immunohistochemistry |
| Gastric | Detectable in a subset of healthy patients [62,63] | Overexpressed relative to homeostatic tissue [62] | Immunohistochemistry |
| Bladder | - | Overexpressed relative to homeostatic tissue and correlated with tumor size and grade [64] | Immunohistochemistry |
| Lung | - | Overexpression predicts outcome in NSCLC [65] | Immunohistochemistry |
| Esophageal | Undetectable in normal adult epithelia [66] | Overexpressed in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Positively correlates with tumor stage [67]. | Immunohistochemistry |