Cytoplasmic CK1ε Protein Expression Is Correlated With Distant Metastasis and Survival in Patients With Melanoma

VASN promotes colorectal cancer progression by activating the YAP/TAZ and AKT signaling pathways via YAP

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common gastrointestinal malignancies. Vasorin (VASN) has been reported to be critical in tumor development and angiogenesis. However, VASN has not been reported in CRC, and its role is unclear. In this study, VASN expression is upregulated in CRC compared with the normal tissues, and VASN expression positively correlates with N stage and poor overall survival by analysis of different datasets and 32 CRC clinicopathologic samples. Overexpression of VASN significantly promotes CRC cell progression, including proliferation, migration, invasion, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), while knockdown of VASN inhibits CRC progression. We found that VASN was associated with the YAP/TAZ and PI3K/AKT pathways by gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and gene ontology (GO) analysis. Notably, western blotting, immunofluorescence staining and co-immunofluorescence (co-IP) confirmed that VASN could interact with YAP and activate the YAP/TAZ and PTEN/PI3K/AKT pathways, and knockdown of YAP reversed this effect. Importantly, our findings indicate that VASN interacts with YAP to inhibit YAP phosphorylation and stimulates CRC proliferation, migration, and invasion through activation of the YAP/TAZ-TEAD target gene CTGF and PTEN/PI3K/AKT pathways. Our results also show that knockdown of YAP reverses the cellular phenotype induced by increased VASN. In conclusion, our study reveals that VASN acts as an oncogene to stimulate tumor progression in CRC, providing new insights into the molecular mechanisms of CRC development and representing a possible novel biomarker for CRC.

Cytoplasmic phosphorylated ERK1/2 expression in patients with melanoma is associated with tumor stage and metastasis

Melanoma is the cause of most deaths from skin cancer. The extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) pathway has been reported to participate in progression of melanoma in fair skinned populations. ERK1/2 is found in both the cytoplasm and nucleus of cells, and phosphorylated ERK1/2 has been implicated in tumor progression. We investigated the relation between melanoma progression and expression of cytoplasmic and nuclear phosphorylated ERK1/2. We examined 34 surgically resected melanomas and investigated their clinicopathologic characteristics. We found immunostaining of phosphorylated ERK1/2 in all melanomas and faint staining in benign nevi. We found expression of cytoplasmic phosphorylated ERK1/2 in most melanomas; however, nuclear phosphorylated ERK1/2 expression was found in only five melanomas. Expression of cytoplasmic phosphorylated ERK1/2 was related to the tumor stage in melanoma. Nine of 10 cases of distant metastasis were positive for cytoplasmic phosphorylated ERK1/2. Our findings suggest that phosphorylated ERK1/2 expression is relevant to clinical pathology and that in melanoma patients, phosphorylated ERK1/2 expression is found in both the cytoplasm and nucleus. Our findings suggest that cytoplasmic phosphorylated ERK1/2 participates in progression of melanoma and that it could be a useful target for clinical treatment of melanoma.

Prognostic Significance of Cytoplasmic SPNS2 Expression in Patients with Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Background and Objectives: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a malignant disease with a particularly high incidence in Taiwan. Our objective in this study was to elucidate the involvement of sphingolipid transporter 2 (SPNS2) expression and SPNS2 protein expression in the clinicopathological indexes and the clinical outcomes of OSCC patients. Materials and Methods: Immunohistochemistry analysis was performed for SPNS2 protein expression in samples from 264 cases of OSCC. Correlations of SPNS2 expression with clinicopathological variables and patient survival were analyzed. Results: Our results revealed that the cytoplasmic protein expression of SPNS2 in OSCC tissue specimens was lower than in normal tissue specimens. Negative cytoplasmic protein expression of SPNS2 was significantly correlated with T status and stage. Kaplan-Meier survival curve analysis revealed that negative cytoplasmic SPNS2 expression was predictive of poorer overall survival of OSCC patients in stage III/IV. We also determined that low SPNS2 expression was an independent prognostic factor related to overall survival among OSCC patients in stage III/IV from univariate Cox proportional hazard models. Multivariate Cox proportional hazard models revealed that cytoplasmic SPNS2 expression, T status, lymph node metastasis, and histological grade were independent prognostic factors for survival. Conclusions: Overall, this study determined that SPNS2 protein may be a useful prognostic marker for OSCC patients and potential therapeutic target for OSCC treatment.