Thymosin β4 has been reported to play the key roles in
tumor growth,
metastasis, and angiogenesis. Although the importance of
thymosin β4 in angiogenesis and
metastasis is known, few studies to show the expression patterns of
thymosin β4 in human tissues including
tumors have been conducted. The comparisons of the expression of
thymosin β4 between the normal and
tumor tissues are also needed to study the role of
thymosin β4 in
tumor formation. Using tissue microarray analysis, we compared the expression patterns of
thymosin β4 in the normal human tissues and in the
tumors to screen certain
tumors and upregulated the expression of
thymosin β4 by
tumorigenesis.
Thymosin β4 was highly expressed in the hepatic cells in the normal adult liver, duct, and acinar cells in pancreas, and muscle cells in the heart and also expressed highly in certain
tumor cells, including
osteosarcoma,
colon adenocarcinoma,
esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, kidney and urinary bladder transitional
carcinoma,
lung cancer, and
liver cancer. Comparing the
thymosin β4 expression between normal and
tumors,
thymosin β4 was upregulated specifically in
osteosarcoma,
colorectal carcinoma, and
esophageal cancer. To confirm the over-expression of
thymosin β4 in these
tumors, we analyzed expression of
thymosin β4 with each additional microarray of
osteosarcoma,
colorectal carcinoma, and
esophageal cancer. The significant increased expression of
thymosin β4 was observed in
osteosarcoma and in
colorectal cancer. These results suggest that the expression of
thymosin β4 is highly related with
tumorigenesis of certain
tumors including the
osteosarcoma and
colorectal cancers.