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Updated: Jun 20, 2026

Microfluidic Co-culture of Renal Healthy and Tumor Epithelium to Model Kidney Cancer Progression
Published on: January 31, 2025
The expression of tumstatin is down-regulated in renal carcinoma
Chun-xiao Xu1, Xian-xi Liu, Guo-sheng Hou
1Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Medicine, Shandong University, 44#, Wenhua Xi Road, 250012 Jinan, Shandong, China.
Abstract:
Tumstatin is the 28 kDa NC1 domain of the alpha3 chain of type IV collagen that inhibits pathological angiogenesis and suppresses endothelial cell proliferation and tumor growth. In the present paper, we expressed and purified recombinant human tumstatin protein and then prepared the anti-tumstatin polyclonal antibody. To investigate the expression of tumstatin in renal carcinoma, tumstatin protein was detected by western blotting using the prepared anti-tumstatin antibody and tumstatin mRNA levels were assayed by RT-PCR. The results showed that the expression of tumstatin gene was down-regulated in renal carcinoma tissues and cells. Our study suggests that as a novel endogenous angiogenesis inhibitor, tumstatin gene expression may be a marker for diagnosis, therapy and prognosis of renal carcinoma.
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