CD8+ lymphocyte intratumoral infiltration as a stage-independent predictor of Merkel cell carcinoma survival: a population-based study.

Objectives: Intratumoral CD8+ lymphocytes (IT-CD8s) have shown promise as a prognostic indicator for Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC). We tested whether IT-CD8s predict survival among a population-based MCC cohort.

Methods: One hundred thirty-seven MCC cases that had not previously been analyzed for IT-CD8s were studied.

Clinical utility of a circulating tumor cell assay in Merkel cell carcinoma.

Background: Quantitation of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) has utility in managing breast, colon, and prostate carcinomas.

Objective: We sought to determine whether a commercially available CTC assay provides prognostic information in Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), insight into treatment responses, or both.

Methods: We analyzed CTCs in 52 specimens from 34 patients with MCC.

C-terminal threonine phosphorylation activates ERM proteins to link the cell's cortical lipid bilayer to the cytoskeleton.

The plasma membrane consists of a lipid bilayer with integral membrane proteins stabilized by regulated linkages to the cortical actin cytoskeleton. The regulation is necessary for cells to change shape ormigrate. The ERM (ezrin-radixin-moesin) proteins are believed to provide such links, with the N-terminal halves associating with integral membrane proteins, either directly or indirectly through adapter molecules like EBP50 (ERM binding phosphoprotein, 50 kDa), and their C-terminal halves associating with F-actin.

Protein kinase C-theta phosphorylation of moesin in the actin-binding sequence.

Moesin, a member of the ezrin-radixin-moesin (ERM) family of membrane/cytoskeletal linkage proteins, is known to be threonine-phosphorylated at Thr558 in activated platelets within its conserved putative actin-binding domain. The pathway leading to this phosphorylation step and its control have not been previously elucidated. We have detected and characterized reactions leading to moesin phosphorylation in human leukocyte extracts.

Two unique 5' untranslated regions in mRNAs encoding human 14-3-3 zeta: differential expression in hemopoietic cells.

In this report, we describe the identification and characterization of a novel 14-3-3 cDNA using the polymerase chain reaction and the screening of a human bone marrow cDNA library. This cDNA encodes the zeta isoform of 14-3-3 and contains a novel 5' untranslated region (UTR) that is G + C rich and only 50% identical to the 5' UTR in the human placental 14-3-3 zeta cDNA, suggesting that 14-3-3 zeta is encoded by at least two mRNAs. Using specific probes to the 5' UTRs of bone marrow and placental 14-3-3 zeta cDNAs, we studied the expression of each transcript in human hemopoietic cells at various stages of differentiation in the myeloid and lymphoid lineages.