Desmin

Desmin is a type III intermediate fibrin that is specifically expressed in muscle cells, which can participate in cell morphology maintaining and signal transduction by forming the cytoskeleton. In clinical practice, Desmin is mainly used to diagnose myogenic tumors such as leiomyoma, leiomyosarcoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, and rhabdomyoblastoma. Its expression level is positively correlated with tumor differentiation degree, which may be because tumors reproduce embryonic phenotype characteristics due to low differentiation or undifferentiation during malignant development. Meanwhile, as a molecular marker of pericytes surrounding microvessels, Desmin has different mechanisms in different tumors. For example, its positivity rate in gallbladder cancer is significantly lower than that in normal tissue, and reduces with enhanced tumor invasiveness in prostate cancer, speculated that Desmin has tumor inhibition effect or the coverage rate of pericytes has decreased. However, Desmin is related to the invasion and metastasis of gastric cancer, colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer and breast cancer, which may be caused by the increase of pericytes during tumor angiogenesis.