scholarly journals YAP controls cell migration and invasion through a Rho-GTPase switch

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sagar R. Shah ◽  
Nathaniel D. Tippens ◽  
JinSeok Park ◽  
Ahmed Mohyeldin ◽  
Shuyan Wang ◽  
...  

SUMMARYUnderstanding the mechanisms controlling invasive spread of normal and transformed cells is central to understanding diverse processes including cancer progression. Here, we report that Yes-associated protein (YAP), a central transcriptional regulator implicated in controlling organ and body size, modulates a Rho-GTPase switch that drives cellular migration by directly transactivating the Rac1-GEF protein TRIO. Additionally, YAP and TRIO activate STAT3 to promote invasive behavior. While we find this YAP-dependent infiltrative program in many cell types, it is particularly enhanced in a patient specific way in the most common malignant brain tumor, glioblastoma (GBM), where hyperactivation of the YAP-mediated TRIO and STAT3 network also confers poor patient outcome and up-regulation of genes associated with the Mesenchymal subtype of GBM. Our analysis suggests that the YAP-TRIO-STAT3 signaling network identified in this study is a ubiquitous regulator of invasive cell spread in a variety of normal and pathological contexts.

Author(s):  
Katerina Strouhalova ◽  
Magdalena Přechová ◽  
Aneta Gandalovičová ◽  
Jan Brábek ◽  
Martin Gregor ◽  
...  

Intermediate filaments constitute the third component of the cellular skeleton. Unlike actin and microtubule cytoskeletons, the intermediate filaments are composed of wide variety of structurally related proteins showing distinct expression patterns in tissues and cell types. Changes in expression patterns of intermediate filaments are often associated with cancer progression, in particular with phenotypes leading to increased cellular migration and invasion. In this review we will describe the role of vimentin intermediate filaments in cancer cell migration, cell adhesion structures, and metastasis formation. The potential for targeting vimentin in cancer treatment and the development of drugs targeting vimentin will be reviewed.


Cancers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katerina Strouhalova ◽  
Magdalena Přechová ◽  
Aneta Gandalovičová ◽  
Jan Brábek ◽  
Martin Gregor ◽  
...  

Intermediate filaments constitute the third component of the cellular skeleton. Unlike actin and microtubule cytoskeletons, the intermediate filaments are composed of a wide variety of structurally related proteins showing distinct expression patterns in tissues and cell types. Changes in the expression patterns of intermediate filaments are often associated with cancer progression; in particular with phenotypes leading to increased cellular migration and invasion. In this review we will describe the role of vimentin intermediate filaments in cancer cell migration, cell adhesion structures, and metastasis formation. The potential for targeting vimentin in cancer treatment and the development of drugs targeting vimentin will be reviewed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongyu Zhao ◽  
Yu Teng ◽  
Wende Hao ◽  
Jie Li ◽  
Zhefeng Li ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Ovarian cancer was one of the leading causes of female deaths. Patients with OC were essentially incurable and portends a poor prognosis, presumably because of profound genetic heterogeneity limiting reproducible prognostic classifications. Methods We comprehensively analyzed an ovarian cancer single-cell RNA sequencing dataset, GSE118828, and identified nine major cell types. Relationship between the clusters was explored with CellPhoneDB. A malignant epithelial cluster was confirmed using pseudotime analysis, CNV and GSVA. Furthermore, we constructed the prediction model (i.e., RiskScore) consisted of 10 prognosis-specific genes from 2397 malignant epithelial genes using the LASSO Cox regression algorithm based on public datasets. Then, the prognostic value of Riskscore was assessed with Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and time-dependent ROC curves. At last, a series of in-vitro assays were conducted to explore the roles of IL4I1, an important gene in Riskscore, in OC progression. Results We found that macrophages possessed the most interaction pairs with other clusters, and M2-like TAMs were the dominant type of macrophages. C0 was identified as the malignant epithelial cluster. Patients with a lower RiskScore had a greater OS (log-rank P < 0.01). In training set, the AUC of RiskScore was 0.666, 0.743 and 0.809 in 1-year, 3-year and 5-year survival, respectively. This was also validated in another two cohorts. Moreover, downregulation of IL4I1 inhibited OC cells proliferation, migration and invasion. Conclusions Our work provide novel insights into our understanding of the heterogeneity among OCs, and would help elucidate the biology of OC and provide clinical guidance in prognosis for OC patients.


Author(s):  
Wenping Song ◽  
Jinhua Chen ◽  
Shuolei Li ◽  
Ding Li ◽  
Yongna Zhang ◽  
...  

Background: In recent years, targeted therapy combined with traditional chemoradiotherapy and surgery has brought new opportunities for cancer treatment. However, the complex characteristics of cancer, such as heterogeneity and diversity, limit the clinical success of targeted drugs. The discovery of new cancer targets and deepening the understanding of their functional mechanisms will bring additional promising application prospects for the research and development of personalized cancer-targeted drugs. Objective: This study aimed to summarize the role of the Rho GTPase activating protein 9 (ARHGAP9) gene in tumorigenesis and development to discover therapeutic targets for cancer in the future. Methods: For this review, we collected patents from the databases of Espacenet and WIPO and articles from PubMed that were related to the ARHGAP9 gene. Results: Genetic/epigenetic variations and abnormal expression of the ARHGAP9 gene are closely associated with a variety of diseases, including cancer. ARHGAP9 can inactivate Rho GTPases by hydrolyzing GTP into GDP and regulate cancer cellular events, including proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, migration and invasion, by inhibiting JNK/ERK/p38 and PI3K/AKT signaling pathways. In addition to reviewing these mechanisms, we assessed various patents on ARHGAP9 to determine whether ARHGAP9 might be used as a predictive biomarker for diagnosis/prognosis evaluation and a druggable target for cancer treatment. Conclusion: In this review, the current knowledge of ARHGAP9 in cancer is summarized with an emphasis on its molecular function, regulatory mechanism and disease implications. Its characterization is crucial to understanding its important roles during different stages of cancer progression and therapy as a predictive biomarker and/or target.


Reproduction ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry E Perlman ◽  
Audrey A Merriam ◽  
Alexander Lemenze ◽  
Qingshi Zhao ◽  
Salma Begum ◽  
...  

In the 1st trimester of human pregnancy, low oxygen tension or hypoxia, is essential for proper placentation and placenta function. Low oxygen levels and activation of signaling pathways have been implicated as critical mediators in the promotion of trophoblast differentiation, migration, and invasion with inappropriate changes in oxygen tension and aberrant Notch signaling both individually reported as causative to abnormal placentation. Despite crosstalk between hypoxia and Notch signaling in multuple cell types, the relationship between hypoxia and Notch in 1st trimester trophoblast function is not understood. To determine how a low oxygen environment impacts Notch signaling and cellular motility, we utilized the human 1st trimester trophoblast cell line, HTR-8/SVneo. Gene set enrichment and ontology analyses identified pathways involved in angiogenesis, Notch and cellular migration as upregulated in HTR-8/SVneo cells exposed to hypoxic conditions. DAPT, a -secretase inhibitor that inhibits Notch activation, was used to interrogate the crosstalk between Notch and hypoxia pathways in HTR-8/SVneo cells. We found that hypoxia requires Notch activation to mediate HTR-8/SVneo cell migration, but not invasion. To determine if our in vitro findings were associated with preeclampsia, we analyzed 2nd trimester chorionic villous sampling (CVS) samples and 3rd trimester placentas. We found a significant decrease in expression of migration and invasion genes in CVS from preeclamptic pregnancies, and significantly lower levels of JAG1 in placentas from pregnancies with early-onset preeclampsia with severe features. Our data support a role for Notch in mediating hypoxia-induced trophoblast migration, which may contribute to preeclampsia development.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 723-737 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Liu ◽  
Yudong Wu ◽  
Cheng Zhang ◽  
Chong Zhou ◽  
Yining Li ◽  
...  

Abstract Adipocyte is the most predominant cell type in the tumor microenvironment of breast cancer and plays a pivotal role in cancer progression, yet the underlying mechanisms and functional mediators remain elusive. We isolated primary preadipocytes from mammary fat pads of human breast cancer patients and generated mature adipocytes and cancer-associated adipocytes (CAAs) in vitro. The CAAs exhibited significantly different gene expression profiles as assessed by transcriptome sequencing. One of the highly expressed genes in CAAs is granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF). Treatment with recombinant human G-CSF protein or stable expression of human G-CSF in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cell lines enhanced epithelial–mesenchymal transition, migration, and invasion of cancer cells, by activating Stat3. Accordantly, targeting G-CSF/Stat3 signaling with G-CSF-neutralizing antibody, a chemical inhibitor, or siRNAs for Stat3 could all abrogate CAA- or G-CSF-induced migration and invasion of breast cancer cells. The pro-invasive genes MMP2 and MMP9 were identified as target genes of G-CSF in TNBC cells. Furthermore, in human breast cancer tissues, elevated G-CSF expression in adipocytes is well correlated with activated Stat3 signal in cancer cells. Together, our results suggest a novel strategy to intervene with invasive breast cancers by targeting CAA-derived G-CSF.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiangshu Jin ◽  
Yafang Liu ◽  
Huinan Qu ◽  
Da Qi ◽  
Xinqi Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Metastatic breast cancer is the major cause of death in breast cancer patients. Activation of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) induces migration and invasion of breast cancer cells (BCCs). OCT4 (POU5F1) is a key transcription factor for reprograming and plays an important role in self-renewal. Recent studies recovered OCT4 may correlate with cancer progression. However, it is no sufficient proofs to verify how OCT4 plays in metastasis of breast cancer. In this present study, we show the role of OCT4 in the migration and invasion of BCCs in vitro and metastasis in vivo.Methods: PCR, Western Blot and Immunofluorescence staining were performed to determine to OCT4 expression in BCCs. Wound-healing assay and invasion assay were utilized to analyze the mobility of BCCs. Tumor metastasis was assessed with nude mice by subcutaneously injection. IHC assay was used to evaluate phosphorylated signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (p-STAT3) expression in breast cancer tissues and normal breast tissues. To study whether OCT4 regulate EMT through STAT3 signal, we used shRNA to knockdown STAT3 gene expression in BCCs.Results: OCT4 changed cell morphology of BCCs, decreased cell adhesion, and inhibited migration, invasion and metastatic ability of BCCs. In the meantime, overexpression of OCT4 activated STAT3 signaling and changed EMT-related protein expressions in BCCs. However, knockdown of STAT3 in BCCs with overexpression of OCT4 could facilitate EMT.Conclusion: Our data demonstrate that OCT4 suppresses EMT in BCCs through activation of STAT3 signaling, which is a key mechanism in impeding BCCs migration and invasion. Collectively, these data suggest that elevating OCT4 expression may be an effective method for reducing the metastatic potential of BCCs, which could also contribute to developing new methods for diagnosis and new molecular target therapies in breast cancer metastasis.


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 5386
Author(s):  
Mahsa Saliani ◽  
Amin Mirzaiebadizi ◽  
Niloufar Mosaddeghzadeh ◽  
Mohammad Reza Ahmadian

RHO GTPases are critical signal transducers that regulate cell adhesion, polarity, and migration through multiple signaling pathways. While all these cellular processes are crucial for the maintenance of normal cell homeostasis, disturbances in RHO GTPase-associated signaling pathways contribute to different human diseases, including many malignancies. Several members of the RHO GTPase family are frequently upregulated in human tumors. Abnormal gene regulation confirms the pivotal role of lncRNAs as critical gene regulators, and thus, they could potentially act as oncogenes or tumor suppressors. lncRNAs most likely act as sponges for miRNAs, which are known to be dysregulated in various cancers. In this regard, the significant role of miRNAs targeting RHO GTPases supports the view that the aberrant expression of lncRNAs may reciprocally change the intensity of RHO GTPase-associated signaling pathways. In this review article, we summarize recent advances in lncRNA research, with a specific focus on their sponge effects on RHO GTPase-targeting miRNAs to crucially mediate gene expression in different cancer cell types and tissues. We will focus in particular on five members of the RHO GTPase family, including RHOA, RHOB, RHOC, RAC1, and CDC42, to illustrate the role of lncRNAs in cancer progression. A deeper understanding of the widespread dysregulation of lncRNAs is of fundamental importance for confirmation of their contribution to RHO GTPase-dependent carcinogenesis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 187-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunil K. Dubey ◽  
Amit Alexander ◽  
Munnangi Sivaram ◽  
Mukta Agrawal ◽  
Gautam Singhvi ◽  
...  

Damaged or disabled tissue is life-threatening due to the lack of proper treatment. Many conventional transplantation methods like autograft, iso-graft and allograft are in existence for ages, but they are not sufficient to treat all types of tissue or organ damages. Stem cells, with their unique capabilities like self-renewal and differentiate into various cell types, can be a potential strategy for tissue regeneration. However, the challenges like reproducibility, uncontrolled propagation and differentiation, isolation of specific kinds of cell and tumorigenic nature made these stem cells away from clinical application. Today, various types of stem cells like embryonic, fetal or gestational tissue, mesenchymal and induced-pluripotent stem cells are under investigation for their clinical application. Tissue engineering helps in configuring the stem cells to develop into a desired viable tissue, to use them clinically as a substitute for the conventional method. The use of stem cell-derived Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) is being studied to replace the stem cells, which decreases the immunological complications associated with the direct administration of stem cells. Tissue engineering also investigates various biomaterials to use clinically, either to replace the bones or as a scaffold to support the growth of stemcells/ tissue. Depending upon the need, there are various biomaterials like bio-ceramics, natural and synthetic biodegradable polymers to support replacement or regeneration of tissue. Like the other fields of science, tissue engineering is also incorporating the nanotechnology to develop nano-scaffolds to provide and support the growth of stem cells with an environment mimicking the Extracellular matrix (ECM) of the desired tissue. Tissue engineering is also used in the modulation of the immune system by using patient-specific Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) and by modifying the physical features of scaffolds that may provoke the immune system. This review describes the use of various stem cells, biomaterials and the impact of nanotechnology in regenerative medicine.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
You Shuai ◽  
Zhonghua Ma ◽  
Weitao Liu ◽  
Tao Yu ◽  
Changsheng Yan ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Gastric cancer (GC) is the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality globally. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are dysregulated in obvious malignancies including GC and exploring the regulatory mechanisms underlying their expression is an attractive research area. However, these molecular mechanisms require further clarification, especially upstream mechanisms. Methods LncRNA MNX1-AS1 expression in GC tissue samples was investigated via microarray analysis and further determined in a cohort of GC tissues via quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) assays. Cell proliferation and flow cytometry assays were performed to confirm the roles of MNX1-AS1 in GC proliferation, cell cycle regulation, and apoptosis. The influence of MNX1-AS1 on GC cell migration and invasion was explored with Transwell assays. A xenograft tumour model was established to verify the effects of MNX1-AS1 on in vivo tumourigenesis. The TEAD4-involved upstream regulatory mechanism of MNX1-AS1 was explored through ChIP and luciferase reporter assays. The mechanistic model of MNX1-AS1 in regulating gene expression was further detected by subcellular fractionation, FISH, RIP, ChIP and luciferase reporter assays. Results It was found that MNX1-AS1 displayed obvious upregulation in GC tissue samples and cell lines, and ectopic expression of MNX1-AS1 predicted poor clinical outcomes for patients with GC. Overexpressed MNX1-AS1 expression promoted proliferation, migration and invasion of GC cells markedly, whereas decreased MNX1-AS1 expression elicited the opposite effects. Consistent with the in vitro results, MNX1-AS1 depletion effectively inhibited the growth of xenograft tumour in vivo. Mechanistically, TEAD4 directly bound the promoter region of MNX1-AS1 and stimulated the transcription of MNX1-AS1. Furthermore, MNX1-AS1 can sponge miR-6785-5p to upregulate the expression of BCL2 in GC cells. Meanwhile, MNX1-AS1 suppressed the transcription of BTG2 by recruiting polycomb repressive complex 2 to BTG2 promoter regions. Conclusions Our findings demonstrate that MNX1-AS1 may be able to serve as a prognostic indicator in GC patients and that TEAD4-activatd MNX1-AS1 can promote GC progression through EZH2/BTG2 and miR-6785-5p/BCL2 axes, implicating it as a novel and potent target for the treatment of GC.


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