Carcinoembryonic antigen

Carcinoembryonic antigen
Structure of extracellular domains of CEACAM based on 1e07[1]
Identifiers
SymbolCEACAM
Membranome211

Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) describes a set of highly-related glycoproteins involved in cell adhesion. CEA is normally produced in gastrointestinal tissue during fetal development, but the production stops before birth. Consequently, CEA is usually present at very low levels in the blood of healthy adults (about 2–4 ng/mL).[2] However, the serum levels are raised in some types of cancer, which means that it can be used as a tumor marker in clinical tests. Serum levels can also be elevated in heavy smokers.[3]

CEA are glycosyl phosphatidyl inositol (GPI) cell-surface-anchored glycoproteins whose specialized sialofucosylated glycoforms serve as functional colon carcinoma L-selectin and E-selectin ligands, which may be critical to the metastatic dissemination of colon carcinoma cells.[4][5][6] Immunologically they are characterized as members of the CD66 cluster of differentiation. The proteins include CD66a, CD66b, CD66c, CD66d, CD66e, CD66f.

  1. ^ Boehm MK, Perkins SJ (June 2000). "Structural models for carcinoembryonic antigen and its complex with the single-chain Fv antibody molecule MFE23". FEBS Letters. 475 (1): 11–6. Bibcode:2000FEBSL.475...11B. doi:10.1016/S0014-5793(00)01612-4. PMID 10854848. S2CID 5765612.
  2. ^ Gan N, Jia L, Zheng L (2011-10-28). "A sandwich electrochemical immunosensor using magnetic DNA nanoprobes for carcinoembryonic antigen". International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 12 (11): 7410–23. doi:10.3390/ijms12117410. PMC 3233412. PMID 22174606.
  3. ^ Duffy MJ (April 2001). "Carcinoembryonic antigen as a marker for colorectal cancer: is it clinically useful?". Clinical Chemistry. 47 (4): 624–30. doi:10.1093/clinchem/47.4.624. PMID 11274010.
  4. ^ Thomas SN, Zhu F, Schnaar RL, Alves CS, Konstantopoulos K (June 2008). "Carcinoembryonic antigen and CD44 variant isoforms cooperate to mediate colon carcinoma cell adhesion to E- and L-selectin in shear flow". The Journal of Biological Chemistry. 283 (23): 15647–55. doi:10.1074/jbc.M800543200. PMC 2414264. PMID 18375392.
  5. ^ Konstantopoulos K, Thomas SN (2009). "Cancer cells in transit: the vascular interactions of tumor cells". Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering. 11: 177–202. doi:10.1146/annurev-bioeng-061008-124949. PMID 19413512.
  6. ^ Thomas SN, Tong Z, Stebe KJ, Konstantopoulos K (2009). "Identification, characterization and utilization of tumor cell selectin ligands in the design of colon cancer diagnostics". Biorheology. 46 (3): 207–25. doi:10.3233/BIR-2009-0534. PMID 19581728.