The role of a small cell lung cancer -specific alternative splice variant of TSLC1 in metastasis.

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Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) accounts for about 20% of lung cancer in Japan. Although chemotherapy is initially effective to SCLC, SCLC often becomes resistant to any therapeutic approaches. Molecular targeting therapy, however, has not been established so far against SCLC. In this study, we found that a cell adhesion molecule, TSLC1/CADM1, was frequently overexpressed in cancer cells and primary tumors from SCLC, and showed a specific splicing isoform which was not observed in normal lung or brain. Furthermore, the exogenous expression of this variant TSLC1 promoted the tumorigenicity of SCLC cells in nude mice. These findings suggested that this splicing variant was associated with the malignant growth and metastasis of SCLC and could provide a useful marker for the diagnosis of SCLC.