scholarly journals PIPKIγ Regulates CCL2 Expression in Colorectal Cancer by Activating AKT-STAT3 Signaling

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
JunLi Xue ◽  
XiaoXiao Ge ◽  
Wei Zhao ◽  
Liqiong Xue ◽  
Congqi Dai ◽  
...  

Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains the third most commonly diagnosed cancer, ranking second among the most common causes of cancer-related mortality. Immune checkpoint therapy has recently been shown to have great potential. However, only some patients respond to immune checkpoint blockade, indicating the unmet need for determining the underlying mechanism of colorectal cancer immunosuppression. In this study, we analyzed The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) datasets and found that high expression of PIPKIγ positively correlated with tumor-associated macrophage infiltration. Further loss-of-function studies revealed that silencing PIPKIγ greatly reduced CCL2 expression at both the mRNA and protein levels, leading to weak chemotaxis of cancer cells to macrophages. Mechanistically, PIPKIγ facilitated PI3K-Akt-mTOR signaling pathway activation to increase STAT3 phosphorylation levels, thus triggering CCL2 transcription to enhance tumor-associated macrophage recruitment. These findings identify the PIPKIγ signaling pathway as a new actor in colorectal cancer immunosuppression and a potential therapeutic target for this common cancer.

Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1493
Author(s):  
Camila Meirelles S. Silva ◽  
Mateus C. Barros-Filho ◽  
Deysi Viviana T. Wong ◽  
Julia Bette H. Mello ◽  
Livia Maria S. Nobre ◽  
...  

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a disease with high incidence and mortality. Colonoscopy is a gold standard among tests used for CRC traceability. However, serious complications, such as colon perforation, may occur. Non-invasive diagnostic procedures are an unmet need. We aimed to identify a plasma microRNA (miRNA) signature for CRC detection. Plasma samples were obtained from subjects (n = 109) at different stages of colorectal carcinogenesis. The patients were stratified into a non-cancer (27 healthy volunteers, 17 patients with hyperplastic polyps, 24 with adenomas), and a cancer group (20 CRC and 21 metastatic CRC). miRNAs (381) were screened by TaqMan Low-Density Array. A classifier based on four differentially expressed miRNAs (miR-28-3p, let-7e-5p, miR-106a-5p, and miR-542-5p) was able to discriminate cancer versus non-cancer cases. The overexpression of these miRNAs was confirmed by RT-qPCR, and a cross-study validation step was implemented using eight data series retrieved from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). In addition, another external data validation using CRC surgical specimens from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) was carried out. The predictive model’s performance in the validation set was 76.5% accuracy, 59.4% sensitivity, and 86.8% specificity (area under the curve, AUC = 0.716). The employment of our model in the independent publicly available datasets confirmed a good discrimination performance in five of eight datasets (median AUC = 0.823). Applying this algorithm to the TCGA cohort, we found 99.5% accuracy, 99.7% sensitivity, and 90.9% specificity (AUC = 0.998) when the model was applied to solid colorectal tissues. Overall, we suggest a novel signature of four circulating miRNAs, i.e., miR-28-3p, let-7e-5p, miR-106a-5p, and miR-542-5p, as a predictive tool for the detection of CRC.


2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 1275-1285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhigang Xiao ◽  
Zhan Qu ◽  
Zhikang Chen ◽  
Zhixue Fang ◽  
Ke Zhou ◽  
...  

Background/Aims: HOX transcript antisense RNA (HOTAIR) plays a vital role in carcinogenesis. However, its functional and regulatory roles remain unclear. In this study, we aimed to investigate its biological function and clinical significance in human colorectal cancer (CRC). Methods: We examined the expression levels of lncRNA HOTAIR and miR-203a-3p in CRC tissues and CRC cell lines by qRT-PCR. Gain and loss-of-function assays were performed to examine the effects of HOTAIR and miR-203a-3p on the proliferation and chemoresistance of CRC cells. The possible mechanisms of HOTAIR were also explored by fluorescence reporter assay and Western blot. Results: The expressions of HOTAIR were upregulated in CRC tissue tissues compared to adjacent control tissues. We also found HOTAIR was downregulated by miR-203a-3p in CRC cell lines. Both HOTAIR knockdown and miR-203a-3p overexpression in CRC cell lines led to inhibited cell proliferation and reduced chemoresistance. We also determined that β-catenin and GRG5 were inhibitory targets of miR-203a-3p, and that Wnt/β-catenin signaling was inhibited by both HOTAIR knockdown and miR-203a-3p overexpression. Significantly, we found that increased expression of miR-203a-3p is essential for cell proliferation repression, chemoresistance reduction, and Wnt/β-catenin signaling inhibition induced by HOTAIR knockdown. Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that the lncRNA HOTAIR could regulate the progression and chemoresistance of CRC via modulating the expression levels of miR-203a-3p and the activity of Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Xue-Yang Li ◽  
Yi Hu ◽  
Nian-Shuang Li ◽  
Jian-Hua Wan ◽  
Yin Zhu ◽  
...  

Background. The receptor of activated protein kinase C 1 (RACK1) promotes the progression and invasion of several cancers. However, the role of RACK1 in the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer (CRC) has not been clearly defined. Herein, we aimed to investigate the biological role of RACK1 in CRC. Materials and Methods. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) dataset were searched, and the expression of RACK1 in CRC tissues and adjacent normal tissues was evaluated. Immunohistochemical staining was performed to detect the expression of RACK1 in human CRC, adenoma, and normal tissues. Western blotting was used to detect the expression of RACK1 in human CRC cell lines. Functional assays, such as BrdU, colony formation, and wound healing and transwell invasion assays, were used to explore the biological role of RACK1 in CRC. Results. RACK1 was upregulated in CRC tissues compared with its expression in adjacent normal tissues in TCGA and the GEO dataset (P<0.05). Moreover, RACK1 was significantly overexpressed in CRC and adenoma tissues compared with its expression in normal tissues (P<0.05). Loss-of-function experiments showed that RACK1 promoted cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in vitro. Conclusions. Our data indicated that RACK1, as an oncogene, markedly promoted the progression of CRC, which suggested that RACK1 is a potential therapeutic target for CRC management.


Dose-Response ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 155932581989417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhi Huang ◽  
Jie Liu ◽  
Liang Luo ◽  
Pan Sheng ◽  
Biao Wang ◽  
...  

Background: Plenty of evidence has suggested that autophagy plays a crucial role in the biological processes of cancers. This study aimed to screen autophagy-related genes (ARGs) and establish a novel a scoring system for colorectal cancer (CRC). Methods: Autophagy-related genes sequencing data and the corresponding clinical data of CRC in The Cancer Genome Atlas were used as training data set. The GSE39582 data set from the Gene Expression Omnibus was used as validation set. An autophagy-related signature was developed in training set using univariate Cox analysis followed by stepwise multivariate Cox analysis and assessed in the validation set. Then we analyzed the function and pathways of ARGs using Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database. Finally, a prognostic nomogram combining the autophagy-related risk score and clinicopathological characteristics was developed according to multivariate Cox analysis. Results: After univariate and multivariate analysis, 3 ARGs were used to construct autophagy-related signature. The KEGG pathway analyses showed several significantly enriched oncological signatures, such as p53 signaling pathway, apoptosis, human cytomegalovirus infection, platinum drug resistance, necroptosis, and ErbB signaling pathway. Patients were divided into high- and low-risk groups, and patients with high risk had significantly shorter overall survival (OS) than low-risk patients in both training set and validation set. Furthermore, the nomogram for predicting 3- and 5-year OS was established based on autophagy-based risk score and clinicopathologic factors. The area under the curve and calibration curves indicated that the nomogram showed well accuracy of prediction. Conclusions: Our proposed autophagy-based signature has important prognostic value and may provide a promising tool for the development of personalized therapy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Alderdice ◽  
Stephanie G Craig ◽  
Matthew P Humphries ◽  
Alan Gilmore ◽  
Nicole Johnston ◽  
...  

Abstract Identifying robust predictive biomarkers to stratify colorectal cancer (CRC) patients based on their response to immune-checkpoint therapy is an area of unmet clinical need. Our evolutionary algorithm Atlas Correlation Explorer (ACE) represents a novel approach for mining The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data for clinically relevant associations. We deployed ACE to identify candidate predictive biomarkers of response to immune-checkpoint therapy in CRC. We interrogated the colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) gene expression data across nine immune-checkpoints (PDL1, PDCD1, CTLA4, LAG3, TIM3, TIGIT, ICOS, IDO1 and BTLA). IL2RB was identified as the most common gene associated with immune-checkpoint genes in CRC. Using human/murine single-cell RNA-seq data, we demonstrated that IL2RB was expressed predominantly in a subset of T-cells associated with increased immune-checkpoint expression (P &lt; 0.0001). Confirmatory IL2RB immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis in a large MSI-H colon cancer tissue microarray (TMA; n = 115) revealed sensitive, specific staining of a subset of lymphocytes and a strong association with FOXP3+ lymphocytes (P &lt; 0.0001). IL2RB mRNA positively correlated with three previously-published gene signatures of response to immune-checkpoint therapy (P &lt; 0.0001). Our evolutionary algorithm has identified IL2RB to be extensively linked to immune-checkpoints in CRC; its expression should be investigated for clinical utility as a potential predictive biomarker for CRC patients receiving immune-checkpoint blockade.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Jinpeng Yuan ◽  
Aosi Xie ◽  
Qiangjian Cao ◽  
Xinxin Li ◽  
Juntian Chen

Background. Inhibin subunit beta B (INHBB) is a protein-coding gene that participated in the synthesis of the transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) family members. The study is aimed at exploring the clinical significance of INHBB in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) by bioinformatics analysis. Methods. Real-time PCR and analyses of Oncomine, Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databases were utilized to evaluate the INHBB gene transcription level of colorectal cancer (CRC) tissue. We evaluated the INHBB methylation level and the relationship between expression and methylation levels of CpG islands in CRC tissue. The corresponding clinical data were obtained to further explore the association of INHBB with clinical and survival features. In addition, Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) was performed to explore the gene ontology and signaling pathways of INHBB involved. Results. INHBB expression was elevated in CRC tissue. Although the promoter of INHBB was hypermethylated in CRC, methylation did not ultimately correlate with the expression of INHBB. Overexpression of INHBB was significantly and positively associated with invasion depth, distant metastasis, and TNM stage. Cox regression analyses and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis indicated that high expression of INHBB was correlated with worse overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). GSEA showed that INHBB was closely correlated with 5 cancer-promoting signaling pathways including the Hedgehog signaling pathway, ECM receptor interaction, TGF-β signaling pathway, focal adhesion, and pathway in cancer. INHBB expression significantly promoted macrophage infiltration and inhibited memory T cell, mast cell, and dendritic cell infiltration. INHBB expression was positively correlated with stromal and immune scores of CRC samples. Conclusion. INHBB might be a potential prognostic biomarker and a novel therapeutic target for CRC.


Open Medicine ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1172-1183
Author(s):  
Gengming Niu ◽  
Li Deng ◽  
Xiaotian Zhang ◽  
Zhiqing Hu ◽  
Shanliang Han ◽  
...  

AbstractLittle is known about the functional roles of gamma-aminobutyric acid type A receptor subunit delta (GABRD) in colorectal cancer (CRC). The expression of GABRD between CRCs and adjacent normal tissues (NTs), metastasis and primary tumors was compared using public transcriptomic datasets. A tissue microarray and immunohistochemical staining (IHC) were used to determine the clinical and prognostic significance of the GABRD in CRC. We used gain-of-function and loss-of-function experiments to investigate the in vitro roles of GABRD in cultured CRC cells. We characterized the potential mechanism of GABRD’s activities in CRC using a Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) with The Cancer Genome Atlas Colon Adenocarcinoma (TCGA-COAD) dataset. We found that the GABRD expression was significantly increased in CRCs compared to that in NTs, but was similar between metastasis and primary tumors. Overexpression of GABRD was significantly associated with later pTNM stages and unfavorable patient survival. Overexpression of GABRD accelerated while knock-down of GABRD inhibited cell growth and migration. Mechanistically, the function of GABRD might be ascribed to its influence on major oncogenic events such as epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), angiogenesis, and hedgehog signaling. Collectively, GABRD could be a novel prognostic predictor for CRC that deserves further investigation.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunhui Yang ◽  
shuang shi ◽  
Ying Su ◽  
jingshan tong ◽  
Liangjun Li

Abstract Background Overexpression of P2 × 7R has been observed in several tumors and is related to cancer advancement and metastasis. However, the role of P2 × 7R in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients is not well understood. Methods In the current study, overexpression of P2 × 7R and the effects at the molecular and functional levels in CRC were assessed in a mouse orthotopic model. Functional assays, such as the CCK-8 assay, wound healing and transwell assay, were used to determine the biological role of P2 × 7R in CRC cells. CSC-related genes and properties were detected via sphere formation and real-time PCR assays. The underlying mechanisms were explored by Western blotting, real-time PCR and Flow cytometry. Results In this study, we found that overexpression of P2 × 7R increase in the in vivo growth of tumors. P2 × 7R overexpression also increased CD31, VEGF and concurrent angiogenesis. P2 × 7R upregulates aldehyde dehydrogenase-1 (ALDH1) and CSC characteristics. Transplanted tumor cells with P2 × 7R overexpression stimulated cytokines to recruit TAMs to increase the growth of tumors. We also found that the NF-κB signaling pathway is involved in P2 × 7R-induced cytokine upregulation. Conclusion P2 × 7R promotes NF-κB-dependent cytokine induction, which leads to tumor-associated macrophage (TAM) recruitment to control tumor growth and advancement and remodeling of the stroma. Our findings demonstrate that P2 × 7R plays a key role in TAM recruitment, which may be a therapeutic target for CRC patients.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Ting Zhou ◽  
Ping Yang ◽  
Sanyuan Tang ◽  
Zhongshan Zhu ◽  
Xiaobing Li ◽  
...  

Aims. Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) cells could escape from the monitoring of immune cells and metastasize rapidly through immune escape. Therefore, we aimed to develop a method to predict the prognosis of LUAD patients based on immune checkpoints and their associated genes, thus providing guidance for LUAD treatment. Methods. Gene sequencing data were downloaded from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and analyzed by R software and R Bioconductor software package. Based on immune checkpoint genes, kmdist clustering in ConsensusClusterPlus R software package was utilized to classify LUAD. CIBERSORT was used to quantify the abundance of immune cells in LUAD samples. LM22 signature was performed to distinguish 22 phenotypes of human infiltrating immune cells. Gene set variation analysis (GSVA) was performed on immune checkpoint cluster and immune checkpoint score using GSVA R software package. The risk score was calculated by LASSO regression coefficient. Gene Ontology (GO), Hallmark, and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis were performed. PROC was performed to generate the ROC curve and calculate the area under the curve (AUC). Results. According to the immune checkpoint, LUAD was classified into clusters 1 and 2. Survival rate, immune infiltration patterns, TMB, and immune score were significantly different between the two clusters. Functional prediction showed that the functions of cluster 1 focused on apoptosis, JAK/STAT signaling pathway, TNF-α/NFκB signaling pathway, and STAT5 signaling pathway. The risk score model was constructed based on nine genes associated with immune checkpoints. Survival analysis and ROC analysis showed that patients with high-risk score had poor prognosis. The risk score was significantly correlated with cancer status (with tumor), male proportion, status, tobacco intake, and cancer stage. With the increase of the risk score, the enrichment of 22 biological functions increased, such as p53 signaling pathway. The signature was verified in IMvigor immunotherapy dataset with excellent diagnostic accuracy. Conclusion. We established a nine-gene signature based on immune checkpoints, which may contribute to the diagnosis, prognosis, and clinical treatment of LUAD.


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