Molecular profiling of bladder cancer: Involvement of the TGF-β pathway in bladder cancer progression

A human bladder cancer model of nine cell sublines derived from the BL17/2 cell line was used to evaluate genes related to disease progression. Molecular profiling of sublines that were non-tumorigenic and invasive in nude mice was performed and identified 1367 differentially-expressed genes. Quantitative real-time PCR analysis of six transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) pathway genes using the entire panel of nine cell lines was performed. Bone morphogenetic protein-2 expression was significantly associated with in vivo tumorigenicity of the cell lines (p = 0.0228, Mann–Whitney); inhibin-βB was related to their invasiveness (p = 0.0468, Mann–Whitney). Analysis of conditioned medium showed TGF-β1 production to be significantly associated with the phenotype of the cell line. The study shows the possible involvement of the TGF-β pathway in bladder cancer progression.