CD138

CD138 is a transmembrane heparan sulfate glycoprotein, which can participate in cell to cell or extracellular matrix adhesion and maintain differentiation phenotype. Some research found that CD138 is down-regulated or even absent in various malignant diseases, such as liver cancer, gastric cancer, colorectal cancer, cervical cancer, and breast cancer. It is closely related to the occurrence and development of tumors, which is because the abnormal expression of CD138 will reduce cell adhesion, induce the loss of growth contact inhibition, and then lead to the disorder of cell proliferation and differentiation. In summary, CD138 has good prognostic evaluation value. Meanwhile, some scholars pointed out that CD138 can be expressed in precursor B cells but not in mature B cells, and then reappears in plasma cells to mediate cell adhesion and antibody secretion. Therefore, CD138 has become a specific marker for plasma cells, which plays a good medical role in the diagnosis of multiple myeloma, and its expression level may be negatively correlated with tumor growth and lymph node metastasis.