Nogo-B receptor (NgBR), a type I single transmembrane domain receptor is the specific receptor for Nogo-B. Our previous work demonstrated that NgBR is highly expressed in breast cancer cells, where it promotes epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT), an important step in metastasis. Here, we show that both in vitro and in vivo increased expression of NgBR contributes to the increased chemoresistance of Bel7402/5FU cells, a stable 5-FU (5-Fluorouracil) resistant cell line related Bel7402 cells. NgBR knockdown abrogates S-phase arrest in Bel7402/5FU cells, which correlates with a reduction in G1/S phase checkpoint proteins p53 and p21. In addition, NgBR suppresses p53 protein levels through activation of the PI3K/Akt/MDM2 pathway, which promotes p53 degradation via the ubiquitin proteasome pathway and thus increases the resistance of human hepatocellular cancer cells to 5-FU. Furthermore, we found that NgBR expression is associated with a poor prognosis of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. These results suggest that targeting NgBR in combination with chemotherapeutic drugs, such as 5-FU, could improve the efficacy of current anticancer treatments.

Grifolin, a secondary metabolite isolated from the fresh fruiting bodies of the mushroom Albatrellus confluens, has been reported by us and others to display potent antitumor effects. However, the molecular target of grifolin has not been identified and the underlying mechanism of action is not fully understood. Here, we report that the ERK1/2 protein kinases are direct molecular targets of grifolin. Molecular modeling, affinity chromatography and fluorescence quenching analyses showed that grifolin directly binds to ERK1/2. And in vitro and ex vivo kinase assay data further demonstrated that grifolin inhibited the kinase activities of ERK1/2. We found that grifolin suppressed adhesion, migration and invasion of high-metastatic cancer cells. The inhibitory effect of grifolin against tumor metastasis was further confirmed in a metastatic mouse model. We found that grifolin decreased phosphorylation of Elk1 at Ser383, and the protein as well as the mRNA level of DNMT1 was also down-regulated. By luciferase reporter and ChIP assay analyses, we confirmed that grifolin inhibited the transcription activity of Elk1 as well as its binding to the dnmt1 promoter region. Moreover, we report that significant increases in the mRNA levels of Timp2 and pten were induced by grifolin. Thus, our data suggest that grifolin exerts its anti-tumor activity by epigenetic reactivation of metastasis inhibitory-related genes through ERK1/2-Elk1-DNMT1 signaling. Grifolin may represent a promising therapeutic lead compound for intervention of cancer metastasis, and it may also be useful as an ERK1/2 kinase inhibitor as well as an epigenetic agent to further our understanding of DNMT1 function.

Risk assessment for prostate cancer is challenging due to its genetic heterogeneity. In this study, our goal was to develop an operational framework to select and evaluate gene variants that may contribute to familial prostate cancer risk. Drawing on orthogonal sources, we developed a candidate list of genes relevant to prostate cancer, then analyzed germline exomes from 12 case-only prostate cancer patients from high-risk families to identify patterns of protein-damaging gene variants. We described an average of 5 potentially disruptive variants in each individual and annotated them in the context of public databases representing human variation. Novel damaging variants were found in several genes of relevance to prostate cancer. Almost all patients had variants associated with defects in DNA damage response. Many also had variants linked to androgen signaling. Treatment of primary T-lymphocytes from these prostate cancer patients versus controls with DNA damaging agents showed elevated levels of the DNA double strand break (DSB) marker γH2AX (p < 0.05), supporting the idea of an underlying defect in DNA repair. This work suggests the value of focusing on underlying defects in DNA damage in familial prostate cancer risk assessment and demonstrates an operational framework for exome sequencing in case-only prostate cancer genetic evaluation.

Grifolin, a farnesyl phenolic compound isolated from the fresh fruiting bodies of the mushroom Albatrellus confluens, exhibits effective antitumor bioactivity in previous study of our group and other lab. In this study, we observed that grifolin inhibited tumor cells adhesion and migration. Moreover, grifolin reduced reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and caused cellular ATP depletion in high-metastatic tumor cells. PGC1α (Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ, coactivator 1α) encodes a transcriptional co-activator involved in mitochondrial biogenesis and respiration and play a critical role in the maintenance of energy homeostasis. Interestingly, grifolin suppressed the mRNA as well as protein level of PGC1α. We further identified that MMP2 and CD44 expressions were PGC1α inducible. PGC1α can bind with metastatic-associated transcription factors: Fra-1 and LSF and the protein-protein interaction was attenuated by grifolin treatment. Overall, these findings suggest that grifolin decreased ROS generation and intracellular ATP to suppress tumor cell adhesion/migration via impeding the interplay between PGC1α and Fra-1 /LSF-MMP2/CD44 axes. Grifolin may develop as a promising lead compound for antitumor therapies by targeting energy metabolism regulator PGC1α signaling.

MicroRNAs are involved in tumor initiation and progression by regulating oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Here we found that miR-495 are lower in clinical ESCC tissues than in adjacent non-tumor tissues. Moreover, the lower miR-495 expression correlated with increased lymph node metastasis (LNM), invasion and TNM stage. miR-495 overexpression predicted a favorable outcome in ESCC patients. miR-495 targeted a site in the 3'-UTR of Akt1, and miR-495 levels correlated inversely with Akt1 protein levels in ESCC tissue samples. Overexpression of miR-495 suppressed cell proliferation, blocked G1/S phase transition, and decreased migration and invasion by two ESCC cell lines in vitro and in vivo. Restoration of Akt1 protein levels in miR-495-overexpressing ESCC cells attenuated the inhibitory effects of miR-495. In addition, miR-495 suppressed cell cycle transition and the EMT signaling pathway through targeting Akt1, thereby inhibiting ESCC cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. Our results suggest that miR-495 may act as a tumor suppressor by targeting Akt1 in ESCC.

Atg9 is a multispanning transmembrane protein that is required for autophagosome formation. During autophagy, vesicles containing Atg9 are generated through an unknown mechanism and delivered to the autophagosome formation sites. We have previously reported that Atg9-containing membranes undergo continuous tubulation and fission during nutrient starvation in a manner dependent on the curvature-inducing protein Bif-1/Sh3glb1. Here, we identify Dynamin 2 (DNM2) as a Bif-1-interacting protein that mediates the fission of Atg9-containing membranes during autophagy. The interaction of Bif-1 and DNM2 is enhanced upon nutrient starvation, and Bif-1 and DNM2 cooperatively induce the generation of Atg9-containing vesicles. Inhibition of the GTPase activity of DNM2 results in the accumulation of Atg9-positive tubular structures that originate from a Rab11-positive reservoir. Although Atg9 seems to be constitutively trafficked to the reservoir regardless of Bif-1 expression, membrane tubulation from the Atg9 reservoir is dependent on Bif-1 and is strongly induced upon nutrient starvation. These findings suggest that the generation of Atg9 vesicles from a Rab11-positive reservoir is tightly controlled by the Bif-1-DNM2 membrane fission machinery in response to cellular demand for autophagy.

Patterns of glycosylation are important in cancer, but the molecular mechanisms that drive changes are often poorly understood. The androgen receptor drives prostate cancer (PCa) development and progression to lethal metastatic castration-resistant disease. Here we used RNA-Seq coupled with bioinformatic analyses of androgen-receptor (AR) binding sites and clinical PCa expression array data to identify ST6GalNAc1 as a direct and rapidly activated target gene of the AR in PCa cells. ST6GalNAc1 encodes a sialytransferase that catalyses formation of the cancer-associated sialyl-Tn antigen (sTn), which we find is also induced by androgen exposure. Androgens induce expression of a novel splice variant of the ST6GalNAc1 protein in PCa cells. This splice variant encodes a shorter protein isoform that is still fully functional as a sialyltransferase and able to induce expression of the sTn-antigen. Surprisingly, given its high expression in tumours, stable expression of ST6GalNAc1 in PCa cells reduced formation of stable tumours in mice, reduced cell adhesion and induced a switch towards a more mesenchymal-like cell phenotype in vitro. ST6GalNAc1 has a dynamic expression pattern in clinical datasets, beingsignificantly up-regulated in primary prostate carcinoma but relatively down-regulated in established metastatic tissue. ST6GalNAc1 is frequently upregulated concurrently with another important glycosylation enzyme GCNT1 previously associated with prostate cancer progression and implicated in Sialyl Lewis X antigen synthesis. Together our data establishes an androgen-dependent mechanism for sTn antigen expression in PCa, and are consistent with a general role for the androgen receptor in driving important coordinate changes to the glycoproteome during PCa progression.

The key problem of cryoablation is that only freezing is often unable to kill the capillaries at tumor edges, leading to a high rate of recurrence. Here, we found that Fe3O4 nanoparticles were highly useful to improve the freezing capability of cryosurgery due to their ability to alter intracellular ice formation (IIF) and growth in tumor cells. The killing efficiency of cryoablation for MCF-7 breast cancer cells can be expected to be enhanced as the Fe3O4 nanoparticles concentration increased, it was mainly because that more IIF was induced by the participation of Fe3O4 nanoparticles during freezing, recrystallization and thawing. Furthermore, our results also showed that recrystallization contributed to the formation of extracellular embryonic crystals, which was capable of enhancing the efficiency of killing MCF-7 cells. This research is to develop an understanding of the mechanism of the cryoablation enhancing the killing efficiency in the presence of the Fe3O4 nanoparticles, and to promote their further application in tumor therapy.

Objectives To investigate whether texture features on contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CECT) images of lung adenocarcinoma have association with pathologic grade. Methods A cohort of 148 patients with surgically operated adenocarcinoma was retrospectively reviewed. Fifty-four CT features of the primary lung tumor were extracted from CECT images using open-source 3D Slicer software; meanwhile, enhancement homogeneity was evaluated by two radiologists using visual assessment. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to determine significant image indicator of pathologic grade. Results Tumors of intermediate grade were more likely to be never smokers (P=0.020). Enhancement heterogeneity by visual assessment showed no statistical difference between intermediate grade and high grade (P=0.671). Among those 54 features, 29 of them were significantly associated with pathologic grade. Multivariate logistic regression analyses identified F33 (Homogeneity 1) (P=0.005) and F38 (Inverse Variance) (P=0.032) as unique independent image indicators of pathologic grade, and the AUC calculated from this model (AUC=0.834) was higher than clinical model (AUC=0.615) (P=0.0001). Conclusions Our study revealed that texture analysis on CECT images could be helpful in predicting pathologic grade of lung adenocarcinoma.

The underlying cause of treatment failure in many cancer patients is intrinsic and acquired resistance to chemotherapy. Recently, histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors have developed into a promising cancer treatment. However, resistance mechanism induced by HDAC inhibitors remains largely unknown. Here we report that a HDAC inhibitor, JNJ-2648158 induced transcription of XIAP by activating AP-1 expression, which conferring resistance to chemotherapeutics. Our results showed that high expression of c-Fos caused by HDAC inhibitor promoted AP-1 formation during acquired resistance towards chemo-drugs, indicating an extremely poor clinical outcome in breast cancers and liver cancers. Our study reveals a novel regulatory mechanism towards chemo-drug resistance, and suggests that XIAP may serve as a potential therapeutic target in those chemo-resistant cancer cells.

Esophageal carcinoma is among the most common cancers worldwide and a leading cause of cancer death [1]. Large numbers of studies indicated that chronic inflammation is closely associated with its development [21, 25]. Furthermore, the JAK/STAT pathway, which plays a critical role in inflammation and immunity, has been implied in a number of malignancies [11]. It has been shown that targeting the pathway affected the growth, apoptosis, and metastasis of cultured esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cells [26]. We found in the present study that STAT3 is constitutively activated in a subgroup of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cell lines and primary tumors. Altered expressions of STAT3 target genes were found in these tumors by using RNAseq and qPCR analysis. Cytokines that activate STAT3 affected the expression of STAT3 target genes and promoted the growth of the ESCC cells, which could be blocked by STAT3 inhibitor and specific siRNA. Inhibition of STAT3 also suppressed the growth and colony formation, and induced apoptosis in the esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cells containing constitutively activated STAT3. Furthermore, the STAT3 inhibitor effectively blocked the growth of patient-derived tumor xenografts that harbored phosphorylated STAT3, but acted less effective on the xenografts derived from primary tumors that contained low levels of activated STAT3. These results indicated that activated STAT3 plays a critical role in the survival and growth of a subgroup of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, and may serve as a target for precision therapeutic intervention.

Oncogene activation is an established driver of tumorigenesis. An apparently inevitable consequence of oncogene activation is the generation of DNA replication stress (RS), a feature common to most cancer cells. RS, in turn, is a causal factor in the development of chromosome instability (CIN), a near universal feature of solid tumors. It is likely that CIN and RS are mutually reinforcing drivers that not only accelerate tumorigenesis, but also permit cancer cells to adapt to diverse and hostile environments. This article reviews the genetic changes present in cancer cells that influence oncogene-induced RS and CIN, with a particular emphasis on regions of the human genome that show enhanced sensitivity to the destabilizing effects of RS, such as common fragile sites. Because RS exists in a wide range of cancer types, we propose that the proteins involved counteracting this stress are potential biomarkers for indicating the degree of RS in cancer specimens. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a pilot study to validate whether some of proteins that are known from in vitro studies to play an essential role in the RS pathway could be suitable as a biomarker. Our results indicated that this is possible. With this review and pilot study, we aim to accelerate the development of a biomarker for analysis of RS in tumor biopsy specimens, which could ultimately help to stratify patients for different forms of therapy such as the RS inhibitors already undergoing clinical trials.

As a major protein constituent of high density lipoprotein, Apolipoprotein A1 (ApoA-1) might be associated with cancer progression. Our study investigated the serum ApoA-1 level for the prognosis of 443 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its effects on tumor cells. We found that the serum ApoA-1 level was significantly lower in HCC patients with tumor recurrence, and was an independent indicator of tumor-free survival and overall survival. Low serum ApoA-1 levels were significantly associated with multiple tumors and high Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer stage. The circulating tumor cell (CTC) levels were significantly higher in patients with low serum ApoA-1 compared with those with high serum ApoA-1 levels (4.03 ± 0.98 vs. 1.48 ± 0.22; p=0.001). In patients with detectable CTCs, those with low ApoA-1 levels had higher recurrence rates and shorter survival times. In vitro experiments showed that ApoA-1 can inhibit tumor cell proliferation through cell cycle arrest and promote apoptosis through down regulating mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway. In addition, ApoA-1 might impair extracellular matrix degradation properties of tumor cells. Taken together, our findings indicate that decreased serum ApoA-1 levels are a novel prognostic factor for HCC, and the role of ApoA-1 in inhibition of proliferation and promotion of apoptosis for tumor cells during their hematogenous dissemination are presumably responsible for the poor prognosis of patients with low ApoA-1 levels. Furthermore, AopA-1 might be a promising therapeutic target to reduce recurrence and metastasis for HCC patients after resection.

The molecular mechanisms involved in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND) remain poorly understood. It has been recently reported that HIV-1 Tat transactivation requires menin, suggesting that menin may be involved in HAND pathogenesis. But the role of menin is not clear. Here, we found that protein level of menin was increased in simian-human immunodeficiency chimeric virus (SHIV)-SF162.P4 and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) sm543-3-infected rhesus macaques compared with the controls by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and western blot. Menin mainly expressed in the frontal cortex neurons of the brain, more importantly, the number of menin-staining cells was positively correlated with cleaved-caspase-3-positive cells while it was negatively correlated with a neuron-specific nuclear protein NeuN-positive cells, suggesting that expression of menin may induce neuronal apoptosis. Further studies showed that menin level was significantly increased during Tat-induced apoptosis, while downregulation of menin by pll3.7-MEN1-shRNA attenuated the Tat-induced cleavage of caspase-3 and caspase-8 in SY5Y cells and primary neuron cultures. Together, our findings reveal a pro-apoptotic role of menin in the brains of the SIV-infected macaques and the cultured neurons, indicating that targeting menin may be potential to block the HIV-1 Tat induced neuronal damage in HAND.

Paclitaxel plays a major role in the treatment of advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. However, there is no biomarker that could be used to predict the clinical response of paclitaxel. This work was conducted to investigate the association of genetic polymorphisms in FBW7 and its substrate genes and the clinical response of paclitaxel. Patients with advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma were treated with paclitaxel 175 mg/m2 over 3 hours day 1 and cisplatin 75 mg/m2 day 1, every 3 weeks. The genotypes of 11 FBW7 and its substrate gene polymorphisms were determined by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. Statistical analysis revealed that patients with mTOR rs1057079 AG (ORadjusted: 4.59; 95% CI: 1.78-11.86) genotype had significant correlation with the clinical response of paclitaxel when compared with AA genotype after adjustment for sex, age, and chemotherapy cycle. The median progression-free survival (PFS) of patients with advanced ESCC who received paclitaxel plus cisplatin (TP) as first-line treatment is 14.3 months (95% CI: 9.0-19.60 months). The median PFS (mPFS) of AG genotypes and AA genotypes in mTOR rs1057079 were 17.31 months (95% CI: 15.9-18.67 months) and 9.8 months (95% CI: 8.58-11.02 months) (p=0.019), respectively.

To investigate the mutation status of growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15) in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), as well as the prognostic value of missense GDF15 mutations.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in human cancer including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In this study, we compared miRNA expression microarray of SPC-A-1sci (high metastatic) and SPC-A-1 (weakly metastatic) cells. We found that miRNA-10a was up-regulated in NSCLC compared with corresponding normal tissues. High expression of miR-10a was associated with tumor node metastasis and lymph node metastasis. Furthermore, overexpression of miR-10a promoted NSCLC cell proliferation, migration and invasion in vitro. We found that PTEN was a direct target of miR-10a in NSCLC. Also miR-10a activated the PTEN/AKT/ERK pathway. We suggest that miR-10a contributes to NSCLC by targeting PTEN.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most lethal malignant tumors worldwide and effective therapies, including molecular therapy, remain elusive. Our previous work demonstrates that oncogenic KIAA0101 transcript variant (tv) 1 promotes HCC development and might be a HCC therapeutic target. However, the function of another KIAA0101 variant, KIAA0101 tv2, remains unknown. In this study, we reported that KIAA0101 tv2 was highly expressed in adjacent non-tumorous liver tissues (NTs) compared to HCC tissues. In vivo and in vitro results showed that KIAA0101 tv2 decreased cell survival, colony formation, tumor xenografts, migration, and invasion, as well as induced cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. Interestingly, it could inhibit the function of KIAA0101 tv1 by partially down-regulating KIAA0101 tv1, acting similar to KIAA0101 tv1 short hairpin RNA (shRNA). Further studies illustrated that KIAA0101 tv2 could increase the activity of p53 by competing with KIAA0101 tv1 for P53 binding. In conclusion, KIAA0101 tv2 exerts anti-tumor activity in HCC and acts as an endogenous competitor of tumor-associated KIAA0101 tv1. KIAA0101 tv2 has a potential to work as a therapeutic drug targeting the KIAA0101 tv1 in HCC.

Numerous evidences indicate that aspirin usage causes a significant reduction in colorectal cancer. However, the molecular mechanisms about aspirin preventing colon cancer are largely unknown. Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) is a most frequently used method to identify the target molecules regulated by certain compound. However, this method needs stable internal reference genes to analyze the expression change of the targets. In this study, the transcriptional stabilities of several traditional reference genes were evaluated in colon cancer cells treated with aspirin, and also, the suitable internal reference genes were screened by using a microarray and were further identified by using the geNorm and NormFinder softwares, and then were validated in more cell lines and xenografts. We have showed that three traditional internal reference genes, β-actin, GAPDH and α-tubulin, are not suitable for studying gene transcription in colon cancer cells treated with aspirin, and we have identified and validated TMEM208 and PQLC2 as the ideal internal reference genes for detecting the molecular targets of aspirin in colon cancer in vitro and in vivo. This study reveals stable internal reference genes for studying the target genes of aspirin in colon cancer, which will contribute to identify the molecular mechanism behind aspirin preventing colon cancer.

It has been reported that metformin acts synergistically with temozolomide (TMZ) to inhibit proliferation of glioma cells including glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). However, the molecular mechanism underlying how metformin exerts its anti-cancer effects remains elusive. We used a combined experimental and bioinformatics approach to identify genes and complex regulatory/signal transduction networks that are involved in restoring TMZ sensitivity of GBM cells after metformin treatment. First, we established TMZ resistant GBM cell lines and found that the resistant cells regained TMZ sensitivity after metformin treatment. We further identified that metformin down-regulates SOX2 expression in TMZ-resistant glioma cells, reduces neurosphere formation capacity of glioblastoma cells, and inhibits GBM xenograft growth in vivo. Finally, the global gene expression profiling data reveals that multiple pathways are involved in metformin treatment related gene expression changes, including fatty acid metabolism and RNA binding and splicing pathways. Our work provided insight of the mechanisms on potential synergistic effects of TMZ and metformin in the treatment of glioblastoma, which will in turn yield potentially translational value for clinical applications.