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Review
. 2021 Nov 15;11(11):5249-5262.
eCollection 2021.

From development to cancer - an ever-increasing role of AGR2

Daria Jach  1 , Yuzhu Cheng  2 , Filip Prica  3 , Laurent Dumartin  4 , Tatjana Crnogorac-Jurcevic  1
Affiliations
Review

From development to cancer - an ever-increasing role of AGR2

Daria Jach et al. Am J Cancer Res. .

Abstract

Anterior gradient 2, AGR2, is a small, 20 kDa protein that plays a vital role in oxidative protein folding in the endoplasmic reticulum. AGR2 is involved in several signal transduction pathways that are essential for cell survival. It was initially discovered in the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis, where it plays an important function in embryonic development. Akin to several other developmental genes, it is also frequently deregulated in cancer, where it plays a decisive role in tumor initiation, progression and metastasis. In this review, we have summarized currently known AGR2 functions, its expression and function in embryonic and cancer development, as well as its potential as a candidate tumor biomarker and promising new target for cancer immunotherapy.

Keywords: AGR2; anterior gradient 2; cancer; embryonic development; therapeutic target; tumor biomarker.

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Conflict of interest statement

None.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
AGR2 expression in the gastrointestinal tract of the human embryo. The human embryonic and fetal material from 3 to 20 weeks of development was obtained from the MRC-Welcome Trust Development Human Developmental Biology Resource (HDBR) tissue bank. Two sections of the human embryo and fetal tissues were used for each stage from Carnegie Stage 19 (CS) of embryonic development up to post-conception week 14 (PCW14). The AGR2 antibody was optimized for Formalin-Fixed Paraffin-Embedded (FFPE) tissues. The immunostaining was performed, and the pictures were scanned using Panoramic 250 3D Histech. AGR2 was found to be expressed across the gastrointestinal tract in several stages of embryonic development: in esophagus and trachea in CS19 (A, B); in the junction of esophagus and stomach; in CS20 (C, D), herniated intestines, stomach, duodenum, and pylorus in CS23 (E-H); and rectum and urethra in PCW10 (I-K).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Summary of main AGR2 pathways. Figure shows regulation of cell proliferation and growth (in blue), tumor progression and drug resistance (in green), invasion and metastasis (in red), stemness and cell survival (in grey), pancreatic cancer (in yellow), breast cancer (in orange), prostate cancer (in purple).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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