Disease relevance of GDF3

• Human STELLAR, NANOG, and GDF3 genes are expressed in pluripotent cells and map to chromosome 12p13, a hotspot for teratocarcinoma [1].
• Human embryonic stem cell genes OCT4, NANOG, STELLAR, and GDF3 are expressed in both seminoma and breast carcinoma [2].
• Thus, hGDF3 represents an embryonal carcinoma stem cell-associated marker both in vitro and in vivo [3].

High impact information on GDF3

• Human growth-differentiation factor 3 (hGDF3): developmental regulation in human teratocarcinoma cell lines and expression in primary testicular germ cell tumours [3].
• We have also mapped the hGDF3 locus to the short arm of human chromosome 12, a region consistently overrepresented in human testicular germ cell tumours [3].
• Interestingly, present work indicated that GDF3/Gdf3 genes were expressed in cerebral cortex, hippocampus as well as in cerebellum, as revealed by RT-PCR, in situ hybridization and immunostaining [4].
• Notably, human STELLAR is located distal to a previously uncharacterized homeobox gene, which is the human homolog of the recently identified murine gene, Nanog, and proximal to the GDF3 locus, whose transcription is restricted to germ cell tumor cells [1].
• While Levine and Brivanlou found that GDF-3 inhibits its own subfamily members (the BMPs), Chen and colleagues found that GDF-3 acts as a nodal-like TGF-beta ligand [5].

Anatomical context of GDF3

• In situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry results revealed that in cerebral cortex, GDF3 was evenly distributed [4].
• Present data suggested that GDF3 might play important roles in the central nervous system (CNS), especially in cerebral cortex, hippocampus and cerebellum, and it shed new light on further research of GDF3 in the central nervous system [4].
• Recently, it was determined that human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) express genes in common with PGCs, and that three of these genes, GDF3, STELLAR, and NANOG, are located on 12p [2].
• RESULTS: GDF3 expression was increased in eight of nine seminomas compared with normal testis, whereas NANOG, OCT4, or both were expressed at the highest levels in seminoma compared with all other markers analyzed [2].

Other interactions of GDF3

• These combined findings raise the intriguing possibility that GDF-3 acts as a bi-functional protein, to regulate the balance between the two modes of TGF-beta signaling [5].

References