About DPPA / Developmental Pluripotency Associated:
Developmental Pluripotency Associated - or DPPA - is a specific marker of pluripotent cells. It's seen to be overexpressed in certain cancers but in this context, it's not understood all that well. It plays a very important role in the self-renewal in embryonic stem cells. There is also a clinical significance of DPPA in colon cancer.
DPPA Function
Pluripotency is the ability of a cell to shift and differentiate into any other cell type. It's a binding protein and most DPPAs show a preference for binding into regions with active chromatin signatures. DPPA encodes a protein which - according to research - could function in cell pluripotency cell control. The pseudogenes of this gene can be found on the long arm of chromosomes 14 and 19, as well as the short arm of chromosome 10.
It's one of the very few core pluripotency genes that lack a defined molecular function. It also lacks a cellular function, and while stem cells have a good potential to be within regenerative medicine, the link between pluripotency factors and tumorigenesis is a roadblock. DPPA is a gene that serves as an important role in cell self-renewal. However, as mentioned, there is a lot that is less than understood about DPPA in cancers and the underlying mechanism does still remain rather elusive. DPPA has been observed as correlating with tumor differentiation and TNM staging.
Studies have shown that developmental pluripotency-associated could play an important role in colon cancer progression. It can also function as a novel prognostic indicator as well as being a therapeutic target.