ROLE OF RHOA-GTPASES ACTIVATOR, GEF-H1, IN THYROID CANCER

PEROS I G; FERNÁNDEZ CHÁVEZ L; CARBALLIDO J.A.; ALONSO EG; GANDINI NA.; MASCARÓ M.; PICHEL P; RECIO S; CURINO AC; FACCHINETTI MM; COLÓ GP

Encuentro; SAIC Sociedad Argentina de Investigación Clínica; 2020

GEF-H1 is a Rho-GTPases activator whose overexpression has been shown to be associated with tumor development. However, its role in thyroid cancer (TC) progression has not yet been studied. TC has been dramatically rising worldwide in recent decades and represents the most prevalent endocrine malignancy. For this reason, we have begun analyzing GEF-H1 expression in human thyroid biopsies. We observed higher cytoplasmic protein concentration when comparing by immunohistochemistry tumor tissue (TT) with non-malignant tissue (NMT) (n=52; p=0.0003). Similar results were obtained by Western blot in thyroid biopsies and cancer cell lines. Furthermore, clinical-histopathological data showed significant GEF-H1 overexpression in TT than NMT (p=7E-07), which correlates with a less patient survival (p=0.0088). mRNA data analysis from biopsies (Human Protein Atlas and Oncomine platforms) also showed a significant GEF-H1 overexpression in TT compared with NMT. Analyzing Gene Expression Omnibus microarray data with R language, we observed that GEF-H1 is between 2-17% of the most expressed genes in different TC histotypes. We also determined that GEF-H1 expression is significantly higher in papillary and anaplastic carcinomas than NMT (p