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Updated: Jun 14, 2026

RhoC GTPase Activation Assay
Published on: August 22, 2010
GPR56 plays varying roles in endogenous cancer progression
Lei Xu1, Shahinoor Begum, Marc Barry
1Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. lei_xu@urmc.rochester.edu
None:
GPR56, a non-classical adhesion receptor, was previously reported to suppress tumor growth and metastasis in xenograft models using human melanoma cell lines. To understand whether GPR56 plays similar roles in the development of endogenous tumors, we analyzed cancer progression in Gpr56 (-/-) mice using a variety of transgenic cancer models. Our results showed that GPR56 suppressed prostate cancer progression in the TRAMP model on a mixed genetic background, similar to its roles in progression of melanoma xenografts. However, its roles in other cancer types appeared to be complex. It had marginal effects on tumor onset of mammary tumors in the MMTV-PyMT model, but had no effects on subsequent tumor progression in either the MMTV-PyMT mice or the melanoma model, Ink4a/Arf (-/-) tyr-Hras. These results indicate diverse roles of GPR56 in cancer progression and provide the first genetic evidence for the involvement of an adhesion GPCR in endogenous cancer development.
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