Rap2A Is Upregulated in Invasive Cells Dissected from Follicular Thyroid Cancer

The development of molecular biomarkers (BMs) of follicular thyroid carcinoma is aimed at advancing diagnosis of follicular neoplasm, as histological examination of those tumors does not lend itself to definitive diagnosis of carcinoma. We assessed the relative levels of expression of 6 genes: CCND2, PCSK2, PLAB, RAP2A, TSHR, and IGF-1R in archived thyroid tissue. The quantitative real-time PCR analysis revealed a significant change in 3 genes: PSCK2 (a 22.4-fold decrease, P = 2.81E -2), PLAB (an 8.3-fold increase, P = 9.81E -12), and RAP2A (a 6.3-fold increase, P = 9.13E -10) in carcinoma compared with adenoma. Expression of PCSK2 was equally low, PLAB was equally high, whereas RAP2A expression was significantly higher (25.9-fold, P = 0.039) in microdissected carcinoma cells that have invaded through the thyroid capsule and entered blood vessels than in thyroid tumor cells growing under the capsule. Thus, RAP2A appeared as a unique and worthy of further evaluation candidate BM associated with invasion of thyroid follicular cells.