| Summary: | Colorectal cancer (CRC) has either an infiltrative or pushing growth pattern, and patients in the former group have a worse prognosis. Infiltrative tumours are linked to epithelial-mesenchymal transition, which in turn is associated with increased cellular migration. As there is no molecular model that entirely describes the difference between infiltrative and pushing configurations we investigated if differences found in cell junctions between tumour cells (in the core of the tumour) could explain the different growth patterns. A PCR array targeting cell junction genes was performed on one infiltrative and one pushing tumour. Thirteen genes were selected for verification by real-time qRT-PCR in additional tumours and normal tissue from the colorectum of patients. GJB3, Gap Junction Protein beta 3 (also known as Connexin 31) was the best candidate for separating tumours of different growth patterns. GJB3 was down-regulated in tumours compared to normal tissue, suggesting that it may act as a tumour suppressor, and it was further decreased in tumours with a pushing growth pattern. Silencing the expression of GJB3 in the colon carcinoma cell line SW480 did not affect the proliferation or the migration of the cells, suggesting that GJB3 by itself cannot regulate proliferation or metastatic spread.
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