Alterations in the EGFR pathway coincide in colorectal cancer and impact on prognosis.

Alterations of the downstream effectors of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) are common events in colorectal cancer (CRC) carcinogenesis. Since EGFR serves as a target for therapy and some downstream effectors of EGFR have predictive and prognostic impact, reliable information on the frequency and concordance of alterations in the signaling pathway has become clinically significant. We, therefore, determined the frequency and coincidence of mutations in the EGFR pathway.

A simple immunohistochemical algorithm predicts the risk of distant metastases in right-sided colon cancer.

Aims: A test predicting distant metastases would be valuable for prognostication in colon cancer (CC). In previous studies, CC with microsatellite instability (MSI) showed a reduced risk of distant metastases. High expression of CD133 and β-catenin, both related to cancer stem cell phenotypes, might be predictive markers for metastasis.

The cancer stem cell marker CD133 has high prognostic impact but unknown functional relevance for the metastasis of human colon cancer.

In colon cancer, CD133 has recently been used to enrich for a subset of tumour cells with tumour-initiating capabilities and was therefore suggested to mark colon cancer stem cells. However, this molecule has surprisingly been shown to lack functional importance for tumour initiation itself. Herein, we investigated whether CD133 may be relevant for colon cancer metastasis in patients, and as metastasis requires several additional biological characteristics besides tumour initiation, we examined the effects of knocking down CD133 expression in colon cancer cell lines on proliferation, migration, invasion, and colony formation.