Natriuretic peptide receptor A inhibition suppresses gastric cancer development through reactive oxygen species-mediated G2/M cell cycle arrest and cell death.

Natriuretic peptide receptor A (NPRA), the major receptor for atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), has been implicated in tumorigenesis; however, the role of ANP-NPRA signaling in the development of gastric cancer remains unclear. Immunohistochemical analyses indicated that NPRA expression was positively associated with gastric tumor size and cancer stage. NPRA inhibition by shRNA induced G2/M cell cycle arrest, cell death, and autophagy in gastric cancer cells, due to accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Either genetic or pharmacologic inhibition of autophagy led to caspase-dependent cell death. Therefore, autophagy induced by NPRA silencing may represent a cytoprotective mechanism. ROS accumulation activated c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) and AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK). ROS-mediated activation of JNK inhibited cell proliferation by disturbing cell cycle and decreased cell viability. In addition, AMPK activation promoted autophagy in NPRA-downregulated cancer cells. Overall, our results indicate that the inhibition of NPRA suppresses gastric cancer development and targeting NPRA may represent a promising strategy for the treatment of gastric cancer.

Specific-detection of clinical samples, systematic functional investigations, and transcriptome analysis reveals that splice variant MUC4/Y contributes to the malignant progression of pancreatic cancer by triggering malignancy-related positive feedback loops signaling.

BACKGROUND: MUC4 plays important roles in the malignant progression of human pancreatic cancer. But the huge length of MUC4 gene fragment restricts its functional and mechanism research. As one of its splice variants, MUC4/Y with coding sequence is most similar to that of the full-length MUC4 (FL-MUC4), together with alternative splicing of the MUC4 transcript has been observed in pancreatic carcinomas but not in normal pancreas. So we speculated that MUC4/Y might be involved in malignant progression similarly to FL-MUC4, and as a research model of MUC4 in pancreatic cancer. The conjecture was confirmed in the present study. METHODS: MUC4/Y expression was detected by real-time quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) using gene-specific probe in the clinic samples. The effects of MUC4/Y were observed by serial in vitro and in vivo experiments based on stable over-expressed cell model. The underlying mechanisms were investigated by sequence-based transcriptome analysis and verified by qRT-PCR, Western blot and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. RESULTS: The detection of clinical samples indicates that MUC4/Y is significantly positive-correlated with tumor invasion and distant metastases. Based on stable forced-expressed pancreatic cancer PANC-1 cell model, functional studies show that MUC4/Y enhances malignant activity in vitro and in vivo, including proliferation under low-nutritional-pressure, resistance to apoptosis, motility, invasiveness, angiogenesis, and distant metastasis. Mechanism studies indicate the novel finding that MUC4/Y triggers malignancy-related positive feedback loops for concomitantly up-regulating the expression of survival factors to resist adverse microenvironment and increasing the expression of an array of cytokines and adhesion molecules to affect the tumor milieu. CONCLUSIONS: In light of the enormity of the potential regulatory circuitry in cancer afforded by MUC4 and/or MUC4/Y, repressing MUC4 transcription, inhibiting post-transcriptional regulation, including alternative splicing, or blocking various pathways simultaneously may be helpful for controlling malignant progression. MUC4/Y- expression model is proven to a valuable tool for the further dissection of MUC4-mediated functions and mechanisms.

Yin Yang-1 suppresses invasion and metastasis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma by downregulating MMP10 in a MUC4/ErbB2/p38/MEF2C-dependent mechanism.

BACKGROUND: Increasing evidence indicates an important role of transcription factor Yin Yang-1 (YY1) in human tumorigenesis. However, its function in cancer remains controversial and the relevance of YY1 to pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains to be clarified. METHODS: In this study, we detected YY1 expression in clinical PDAC tissue samples and cell lines using quantitative RT-PCR, immunohistochemistry and western blotting. We also detected MUC4 and MMP10 mRNA levels in 108 PDAC samples using qRT-PCR and analyzed the correlations between YY1 and MUC4 or MMP10 expression. The role of YY1 in the proliferation, invasion and metastatic abilities of PDAC cells in vitro was studied by CCK-8 assay, cell migration and invasion assays. In vivo pancreatic tumor growth and metastasis was studied by a xenogenous subcutaneously implant model and a tail vein metastasis model. The potential mechanisms underlying YY1 mediated tumor progression in PDAC were explored by digital gene expression (DGE) sequencing, signal transduction pathways blockage experiments and luciferase assays. Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS 15.0 software. RESULTS: We found that the expression of YY1 in PDACs was higher compared with their adjacent non-tumorous tissues and normal pancreas tissues. However, PDAC patients with high level overexpression of YY1 had better outcome than those with low level overexpression. YY1 expression levels were statistically negatively correlated with MMP10 expression levels, but not correlated with MUC4 expression levels. YY1 overexpression suppressed, whereas YY1 knockdown enhanced, the proliferation, invasion and metastatic properties of BXPC-3 cells, both in vitro and in vivo. YY1 suppresses invasion and metastasis of pancreatic cancer cells by downregulating MMP10 in a MUC4/ErbB2/p38/MEF2C-dependent mechanism. CONCLUSIONS: The present study suggested that YY1 plays a negative role, i.e. is a tumor suppressor, in PDAC, and may become a valuable diagnostic and prognostic marker of PDAC.

Transcriptional regulation of human MUC4 gene: identification of a novel inhibitory element and its nuclear binding protein.

The human mucin 4 (MUC4) is aberrantly expressed in pancreatic adenocarcinoma and tumor cell lines, while remaining undetectable in normal pancreas, indicating its important role in pancreatic cancer development. Although its transcriptional regulation has been investigated in considerable detail, some important elements remain unknown. The aim of the present study was to demonstrate the existence of a novel inhibitory element in the MUC4 promoter and characterize some of its binding proteins. By luciferase reporter assay, we located the inhibitory element between nucleotides -2530 and -2521 in the MUC4 promoter using a series of deletion and mutant reporter constructs. Electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) with Bxpc-3 cell nuclear extracts revealed that one protein or protein complex bind to this element. The proteins binding to this element were purified and identified as Yin Yang 1 (YY1) by mass spectrometry. Supershift assay and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assay confirmed that YY1 binds to this element in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, transient YY1 overexpression significantly inhibited MUC4 promoter activity and endogenous MUC4 protein expression. In conclusion, we reported here a novel inhibitory element in the human MUC4 promoter. This provides additional data on MUC4 gene regulation and indicates that YY1 may be a potential target for abnormal MUC4 expression.