Collagen Triple Helix Repeat Containing 1 (CTHRC1) acts via ERK-dependent induction of MMP9 to promote invasion of colorectal cancer cells

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Collagen triple helix repeat-containing 1 (CTHRC1) is known to be aberrantly upregulated in most human solid tumors, although the functional roles of CTHRC1 in colorectal cancer remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the occurrence of CTHRC1 upregulation and its role in vivo and in vitro. The expression profile and clinical importance of CTHRC1 were examined by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemical analyses in normal and tumor patient samples. CTHRC1 was detectable in normal tissues, but also was highly expressed in tumor specimens. CTHRC1 upregulation was significantly associated with demethylation of the CTHRC1 promoter in colon cancer cell lines and tumor tissues. Clinicopathologic analyses showed that nodal status and expression of CTHRC1 (95 % CI 0.999-3.984