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Centromere Protein H Is Up-regulated in Primary Human Colorectal Cancer and Its Overexpression Induces Aneuploidy

¹ Department of Molecular Diagnosis (F8) and ² Academic Surgery (M9), Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba, Japan; and ³ Bioscience and Biotechnology Center, Nagoya University, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, Japan

Requests for reprints: Takeshi Tomonaga, Department of Molecular Diagnosis (F8), Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba 260-8670, Japan. Phone: 81-43-226-2167; Fax: 81-43-226-2169; E-mail: tomonaga{at}faculty.chiba-u.jp.

Chromosomal instability (CIN) has been recognized as a hallmark of human cancer and is caused by continuous chromosome missegregation during mitosis. Proper chromosome segregation requires a physical connection between spindle microtubules and centromeric DNA and this attachment occurs at proteinaceous structures called kinetochore. Several centromere proteins such as CENP-A and CENP-H are the fundamental components of the human active kinetochore, and inappropriate expression of the centromere proteins could be a major cause of CIN. We have previously shown that CENP-A was overexpressed in primary human colorectal cancer. In this study, we show that CENP-H was also up-regulated in all of 15 primary human colorectal cancer tissues as well as in CIN tumor cell lines. Surprisingly, transient transfection of CENP-H expression plasmid into the diploid cell line HCT116 remarkably induced aneupoidy. Moreover, CENP-H stable transfectant of mouse embryonic fibroblast/3T3 cell lines showed aberrant interphase micronuclei, characteristic of chromosome missegregation. In these CENP-H overexpressed cells, CENP-H completely disappeared from the centromere of mitotic chromosomes, which might be the cause of the chromosome segregation defect. These results suggest that the aberrant expression and localization of a kinetochore protein CENP-H plays an important role in the aneuploidy frequently observed in colorectal cancers.

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