Downregulation of ERBB3 decreases the proliferation, migration and invasion of cervical cancer cells though the interaction with MTK-1

MAP3K4 kinase action and dual role in cancer

It is commonly known that the MAPK pathway is involved in translating environmental inputs, regulating downstream reactions, and maintaining the intrinsic dynamic balance. Numerous essential elements and regulatory processes are included in this pathway, which are essential to its functionality. Among these, MAP3K4, a member of the serine/threonine kinases family, plays vital roles throughout the organism's life cycle, including the regulation of apoptosis and autophagy. Moreover, MAP3K4 can interact with key partners like GADD45, which affects organism's growth and development. Notably, MAP3K4 functions as both a tumor promotor and suppressor, being activated by a variety of factors and triggering diverse downstream pathways that differently influence cancer progression. The aim of this study is to provide a brief overview of physiological functions of MAP3K4 and shed light on its contradictory roles in tumorigenesis.

ERBB3 methylation and immune infiltration in tumor microenvironment of cervical cancer

ERBB3, a member of the ERBB family of receptor tyrosine kinases, plays an important role in cancer, despite its lack of intrinsic carcinogenic mechanism of cervical squamous cell carcinoma and endocervical adenocarcinoma (CESC). Research on bioinformatics methods through multi-omics, this work proves that ERBB3 gene mutation, methylation modification have extensive regulatory mechanisms on the CESC microenvironment. We found that ERBB3 is involved in carcinogenesis of cervical cancer and is not associated with its prognosis. The carcinogenic mechanism is mainly related to the suppression of the immune system between tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and the methylation of the RNA level. Our study indicated ERBB3 is more likely to be a carcinogenic factor than a key prognostic factor for cervical cancer. Methylation of ERBB3 may work as a checkpoint immunotherapy target in CESC, DNA methylation modification of the 4480 base pair downstream of ERBB3 transcription initiation site was the highest.

UHRF2 promotes Hepatocellular Carcinoma Progression by Upregulating ErbB3/Ras/Raf Signaling Pathway

Emerging evidence revealed that UHRF2 was implicated in a variety of human diseases, especially in cancer. However, the biological function, clinical significance and underly mechanisms of UHRF2 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is largely unknown. We analyzed the expression of UHRF2 in 371 HCC tissues and 50 para-cancerous tissues of TCGA database. We found that UHRF2 was significantly upregulated in HCC tissues, which was further confirmed in HCC cells and tissues by western blot. More importantly, the level of UHRF2 was correlated with pathological grade and clinical stage, and the patients with high level of UHRF2 had lower overall survival, disease-free survival and higher recurrence rate than those with low UHRF2 level. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that high level of UHRF2 might be an independent prognostic factor for HCC patients. Functional investigations suggested that ectopic expression of UHRF2 could promote the proliferation, migration and invasion of HCC cell lines, whereas knock down of UHRF2 exhibited an opposite effect. Additionally, gene set enrichment analysis indicated that ERBB signaling pathway was upregulated in patients with high level of UHRF2. Pearson correlation analysis indicated that the expression of UHRF2 was positively correlated with ErbB3 and its downstream targets SOS1, Ras and Raf-1. Furthermore, we found that overexpression of UHRF2 could upregulate the expression of ErbB3, SOS1, Ras and Raf-1. Our findings suggested that UHRF2 might accelerate HCC progression by upregulating ErbB3/Ras/Raf signaling pathway and it might serve as a diagnostic marker and therapeutic target for HCC patients.

Comparison of Cancer Cell Elasticity by Cell Type

Lower cellular elasticity is a distinguishing feature of cancer cells compared with normal cells. To determine whether cellular elasticity differs based on cancer cell type, cells were selected from three different cancer types including breast, cervix, and lung. For each cancer type, one counterpart normal cell and three types of cancer cells were selected, and their elasticity was measured using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The elasticity of normal cells was in the order of MCF10A > WI-38 ≥ Ect1/E6E7 which corresponds to the counterpart normal breast, lung, and cervical cancer cells, respectively. All cancer cells exhibited lower elasticity than their counterpart normal cells. Compared with the counterpart normal cells, the difference in cellular elasticity was the greatest in cervical cancer cells, followed by lung and breast cancer cells. This result indicates lower elasticity is a unique property of cancer cells; however, the reduction in elasticity may depend on the histological origin of the cells. The F-actin cytoskeleton of cancer cells was different in structure and content from normal cells. The F-actin is mainly distributed at the periphery of cancer cells and its content was mostly lower than that seen in normal cells.

Upregulation of lncRNA GATA6-AS suppresses the migration and invasion of cervical squamous cell carcinoma by downregulating MTK-1

The diagnosis and treatment of cervical squamous cell carcinoma is challenged by difficulties in the determination of tumor invasion. GATA binding protein 6 antisense (GATA6-AS) is a recently identified long non-coding RNA that exhibits critical functions in the growth of endothelial cells; however, to the best of our knowledge, its involvement in other physiological and pathological processes is unknown. By reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction, the present study examined the expression of GATA6-AS in tumor tissues and adjacent healthy tissues, and the serum from patients with cervical squamous cell carcinoma and healthy controls. The diagnostic and prognostic potentials of GATA6-AS for cervical squamous cell carcinoma were analyzed by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis and survival curve analysis, respectively. Associations between the serum levels of GATA6-AS and clinical characteristics of patients with cervical squamous cell carcinoma were analyzed by a χ² test. A GATA6-AS overexpression vector was transfected into cervical squamous cell carcinoma cells, and the effects on cell migration and invasion were investigated by Transwell migration and invasion assays, respectively. The expression of mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase 4 (MTK-1) following transfection with the GATA6-AS overexpression vector was detected by western blot analysis. It was identified that the expression levels of GATA6-AS were lower in tumor tissues compared with healthy tissues. In addition, serum levels of GATA6-AS were higher in patients compared with healthy controls. The serum levels of GATA6-AS were associated with tumor metastasis, and may serve as a potential diagnostic and prognostic marker for cervical squamous cell carcinoma. Furthermore, GATA6-AS overexpression inhibited cancer cell migration and invasion. The expression levels of MTK-1 were also reduced following GATA6-AS overexpression. Therefore, the present study proposed that downregulated GATA6-AS expression was associated with tumor metastasis in cervical squamous cell carcinoma, and that GATA6-AS expression may inhibit cancer cell migration and invasion by downregulating MTK-1.