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Increased Expression of GARP in Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

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Abstract

Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are immunosuppressive immune cells that play an important role in tumor development. Suppression of Treg function is considered to be an effective strategy for cancer therapy. Glycoprotein A repetitions predominant (GARP) has been found on the surface of activated Tregs. GARP has been recently observed in only a few solid tumors including breast, colon, lung cancers, and melanoma. However, its function in cancers remains unknown. Here, we investigated the expression of GARP in human papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) and its prognostic significance. In this study, immunohistochemistry was performed to examine the expression of GARP and Foxp3 in 19 human PTC tissues (including 10 cases with and 9 cases without lymph node metastasis) and 20 benign thyroid diseases (including 10 cases with nodular goiter and 10 cases with adenoma). Compared with benign thyroid diseases, we found a significant increase in the expression of GARP in PTC. Increased GARP expression in PTC was positively correlated with increased expression of Foxp3, which is very important for development of Tregs. But, there is no significant association of elevated expression of GARP with lymph node metastasis in PTC. Our results indicate that GARP is implicated in the development of PTC and might be a potential novel target for anticancer therapy. In addition, our findings further support the existence of a positive-feedback loop between GARP and Foxp3.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. Fengjie Qi for her confirmation of the pathological diagnosis of the patients. This study was supported by the high talent support program project of Jinzhou Medical University (2015RC011).

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  1. Xiaoxu Zhang and Miao Guo contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anatomy, College of Basic Medical Sciences of Jinzhou Medical University, Jinzhou, 121001, Liaoning, China

    Xiaoxu Zhang & Fu Ren

  2. Department of Clinical Laboratory, The First Affiliated Hospital of Jinzhou Medical University, Jinzhou, 121001, Liaoning, China

    Miao Guo

  3. Department of Pathology, College of Basic Medical Sciences of Jinzhou Medical University, Jinzhou, 121001, Liaoning, China

    Jing Yang

  4. Department of Medical Imaging, Jinzhou Medical University, Jinzhou, 121001, Liaoning, China

    Yuxiao Zheng

  5. Department of Epidemiology, Public Health College of Jinzhou Medical University, Jinzhou, 121001, Liaoning, China

    Yanjie Xiao

  6. Institute of Biological Anthropology, Jinzhou Medical University, No.40, Section 3, Songpo Road, Linghe District, Jinzhou, 121001, Liaoning, China

    Wei Liu & Fu Ren

  7. Liaoning Province Key Laboratory of Chinese Physical Characteristics Research (LPKL-CPCR), Jinzhou, 121001, Liaoning, China

    Wei Liu & Fu Ren

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  1. Xiaoxu Zhang
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Correspondence to Wei Liu or Fu Ren.

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The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Jinzhou Medical University.

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Zhang, X., Guo, M., Yang, J. et al. Increased Expression of GARP in Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma. Endocr Pathol 30, 1–7 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12022-018-9557-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12022-018-9557-0

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