scholarly journals A Six-Epithelial–Mesenchymal Transition Gene Signature May Predict Metastasis of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

2020 ◽  
Vol Volume 13 ◽  
pp. 6497-6509
Author(s):  
Li Yuan Wei ◽  
Xiao Jun Zhang ◽  
Li Wang ◽  
Li Na Hu ◽  
Xu Dong Zhang ◽  
...  
2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. e12617-e12617
Author(s):  
Liyuan Wei ◽  
Li Wang ◽  
Xiaojun Zhang ◽  
Xu Dong Zhang ◽  
Jinnan Gao

e12617 Background: Pathological complete response (pCR) to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) is associated with favorable outcomes of patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). However, the heterogeneous nature of the disease often results in diverse responses to the same NACT protocol. In particular, a proportion of patients with residual disease (RD) develop metastasis at early stages after treatment. Further stratification of TNBC patients without pCR to NACT is needed for the development of novel strategies in the management of these patients. Methods: A retrospective series of ten TNBC patients with locally residual disease after NACT with the EC-T regimen at Shanxi Bethune Hospital between 2014 and 2018 were included. Total RNA from FFPE pre-NACT core biopsies and paired surgical specimens was subjected to the Affymetrix Human Transcriptome Array. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) was used to identify signal pathways and gene signatures associated with early metastasis after NACT followed by surgery. The Cox proportional hazard model and Kaplan-Meier survival curves on DMFS (distant metastasis-free survival) were employed to assess the prognostic value of the identified signature in TNBC patients from GEO datasets. Results: The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) pathway was markedly more enriched in pre- (NES = 1.92; p.adjust = 0.019) and post-NACT samples (NES = 2.02; p.adjust = 0.010) from patients who developed metastasis at relatively early stages ( < 18 months) after surgery compared with those who had been disease-free. Noticeably, the EC-T NACT differentially affected the expression of EMT genes resulting in global promotion or inhibition of the pathway in a case-dependent manner. Nevertheless, a subset of 6 EMT genes including LUM, SFRP4, DCN, MMP2, CXCL12, and HTRA1 was expressed constantly at higher levels in samples from patients who progressed to metastasis. The potential of this 6-EMT gene signature to predict TNBC metastasis was validated in the MDACC neoadjuvant series (GSE25066) that contained 113 TNBC patients with RD (55 with metastasis; p = 0.0008; HR = 0.36; 95% CI: 0.200-0.685) and the ICO–UMGC dataset (GSE103091) including 107 TNBC patients (31 with metastasis; p = 0.032, HR = 0.46, 95% CI:0.225-0.937). Conclusions: The expression of the 6-EMT gene signature at diagnosis may be a predictive value of metastasis of TNBC. Moreover, the persistently high expression of the signature may signal early metastasis in TNBC patients with residual disease after EC-T NACT.


Breast Cancer ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingzi Zhang ◽  
Jiao Tian ◽  
Chi Qu ◽  
Yang Peng ◽  
Jinwei Lei ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Recent studies have indicated that serpin peptidase inhibitor, clade A, member 3 (SERPINA3) is a potential marker associated with tumor progression, which connoted that SERPINA3 is related to malignant phenotypes in cancer. However, the biological function of SERPINA3 in breast cancer (BC) remains unclear. Methods Bioinformatics data were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases. Immunohistochemical staining (IHC) was conducted to determine SERPINA3 expression. With strong aggressive abilities, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cell lines (MDA-MB-231, BT549 and MDA-MB-436) were obtained to examine SERPINA3 expression and functions. Wound healing and Transwell assays were performed to measure cell migration and invasion. Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assay was conducted to detect cell proliferation abilities and cell viabilities. Results SERPINA3 was upregulated in BC tissues. Functional assays suggested that overexpression of SERPINA3 significantly promoted cell proliferation, where migration and invasion of TNBC cells were accelerated. Knockdown of SERPINA3 had the opposite effects. These results causing by overexpression of SERPINA3 were also confirmed in non-TNBC cell lines. Overexpression of SERPINA3 remarkably enhanced the epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) by upregulating the EMT markers and EZH2. In addition, the overexpression of SERPINA3 reduced the sensitivity of TNBC cells to cisplatin. Conclusion SERPINA3 can regulate the migration, invasion and EMT of TNBC cells and increased expression of SERPINA3 confers resistance to cisplatin in TNBC cells. We discern it is required for the regulation of BC progression and is a critical target for the clinical treatment of BC.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 096368972092998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuang Du ◽  
Yan Wang ◽  
Yingying Zhang ◽  
Jianhua Zhang ◽  
Linfeng Zhang ◽  
...  

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is one of the most aggressive cancer types with high recurrence, metastasis, and drug resistance. Recent studies report that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs)-mediated competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNA) play an important role in tumorigenesis and drug resistance of TNBC. Although elevated lncRNA DLX6 antisense RNA 1 (DLX6-AS1) has been observed to promote carcinogenesis in various cancers, the role in TNBC remained unclear. In this study, expression levels of DLX6-AS1 were increased in TNBC tissues and cell lines when compared with normal tissues or breast fibroblast cells which were determined by quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR). Then, CCK-8 assay, cell colony formation assay and western blot were performed in CAL-51 cells transfected with siRNAs of DLX6-AS1 or MDA-MB-231 cells transfected with DLX6-AS1 over expression plasmids. Knock down of DLX6-AS1 inhibited cell proliferation, epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), decreased expression levels of BCL2 apoptosis regulator (Bcl-2), Snail family transcriptional repressor 1 (Snail) as well as N-cadherin and decreased expression levels of cleaved caspase-3, γ-catenin as well as E-cadherin, while up regulation of DLX6-AS1 had the opposite effect. Besides, knockdown of DLX6-AS1 in CAL-51 cells or up regulation of DLX6-AS1 in MDA-MB-231 cells also decreased or increased cisplatin resistance of those cells analyzed by MTT assay. Moreover, by using dual luciferase reporter assay, RNA immunoprecipitation and RNA pull down assay, a ceRNA which was consisted by lncRNA DLX6-AS1, microRNA-199b-5p (miR-199b-5p) and paxillin (PXN) was identified. And DLX6-AS1 function through miR-199b-5p/PXN in TNBC cells. Finally, results of xenograft experiments using nude mice showed that DLX6-AS1 regulated cell proliferation, EMT and cisplatin resistance by miR-199b-5p/PXN axis in vivo. In brief, DLX6-AS1 promoted cell proliferation, EMT, and cisplatin resistance through miR-199b-5p/PXN signaling in TNBC in vitro and in vivo.


Drug Research ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Shadboorestan ◽  
Parastoo Tarighi ◽  
Mahsa Koosha ◽  
Homa Faghihi ◽  
Mohammad Hossein Ghahremani ◽  
...  

Background Glucagon-like petide-1 (GLP-1) agonists such as liraglutide are widely employed in type 2 diabetes due to their glucose reducing properties and small risk of hypoglycemia. Recently, it has been shown that GLP-1agonists can inhibit breast cancer cells growth. Nonetheless, concerns are remained about liraglutide tumor promoting effects as stated by population studies. Material and Methods We evaluated the effects liraglutide on proliferation of MDA-MB-231 cells by MTT assay and then ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters expressions assessed by Real time PCR. Statistical comparisons were made using one-way analysis of variance followed by a post hoc Dunnett test. Results Here, we report that liraglutide can stimulate the growth of highly invasive triple negative cell line MDA-MB-231; which can be attributed to AMPK-dependent epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) happening in MDA-MB-231 context. Toxicity effects were only observed with concentrations far above the serum liraglutide concentration. ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters expressions were upregulated, indicating the possible drug resistance and increased EMT. Conclusion In conclusion, these results suggest that liraglutide should be used with caution in patients who are suffering or have the personal history of triple negative breast cancer. However, more detailed studies are required to deepen understanding of liraglutide consequences in triple negative breast cancer. ▶Graphical Abstract.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nataliia Petruk ◽  
Sanni Tuominen ◽  
Malin Åkerfelt ◽  
Jesse Mattsson ◽  
Jouko Sandholm ◽  
...  

AbstractCD73 is a cell surface ecto-5′-nucleotidase, which converts extracellular adenosine monophosphate to adenosine. High tumor CD73 expression is associated with poor outcome among triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients. Here we investigated the mechanisms by which CD73 might contribute to TNBC progression. This was done by inhibiting CD73 with adenosine 5′-(α, β-methylene) diphosphate (APCP) in MDA-MB-231 or 4T1 TNBC cells or through shRNA-silencing (sh-CD73). Effects of such inhibition on cell behavior was then studied in normoxia and hypoxia in vitro and in an orthotopic mouse model in vivo. CD73 inhibition, through shRNA or APCP significantly decreased cellular viability and migration in normoxia. Inhibition of CD73 also resulted in suppression of hypoxia-induced increase in viability and prevented cell protrusion elongation in both normoxia and hypoxia in cancer cells. Sh-CD73 4T1 cells formed significantly smaller and less invasive 3D organoids in vitro, and significantly smaller orthotopic tumors and less lung metastases than control shRNA cells in vivo. CD73 suppression increased E-cadherin and decreased vimentin expression in vitro and in vivo, proposing maintenance of a more epithelial phenotype. In conclusion, our results suggest that CD73 may promote early steps of tumor progression, possibly through facilitating epithelial–mesenchymal transition.


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