Differentiation associated modulation of K‐FGF expression in a human teratocarcinoma cell line and in primary germ cell tumours

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The human teratocarcinoma cell line Tera 2 can be induced to differentiate in vitro after exposure to retinoic acid. We show in this paper that whereas the K‐FGF oncogene is expressed in undifferentiated cells, addition of retinoic acid rapidly (< 60 min) downregulates the expression of this gene. However, when cells are cultured in RA for an extended period of time (> 15 days) K‐FGF transcripts reappear. We also report that K‐FGF is expressed in approximately one‐third of primary human germ cell tumours but not in the corresponding normal testicular tissue.