scholarly journals Downregulated SPINK4 is associated with poor survival in colorectal cancer

BMC Cancer ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaojie Wang ◽  
Qian Yu ◽  
Waleed M. Ghareeb ◽  
Yiyi Zhang ◽  
Xingrong Lu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background SPINK4 is known as a gastrointestinal peptide in the gastrointestinal tract and is abundantly expressed in human goblet cells. The clinical significance of SPINK4 in colorectal cancer (CRC) is largely unknown. Methods We retrieved the expression data of 1168 CRC patients from 3 Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets (GSE24551, GSE39582, GSE32323) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to compare the expression level of SPINK4 between CRC tissues and normal colorectal tissues and to evaluate its value in predicting the survival of CRC patients. At the protein level, these results were further confirmed by data mining in the Human Protein Atlas and by immunohistochemical staining of samples from 81 CRC cases in our own center. Results SPINK4 expression was downregulated in CRC compared with that in normal tissues, and decreased SPINK4 expression at both the mRNA and protein levels was associated with poor prognosis in CRC patients from all 3 GEO datasets, the TCGA database and our cohort. Additionally, lower SPINK4 expression was significantly related to higher TNM stage. Moreover, in multivariate regression, SPINK4 was confirmed as an independent indicator of poor survival in CRC patients in all databases and in our own cohort. Conclusions We concluded that reduced expression of SPINK4 relates to poor survival in CRC, functioning as a novel indicator.

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuan He ◽  
Li-Yue Sun ◽  
Jing Wang ◽  
Rui Gong ◽  
Qiong Shao ◽  
...  

Objective. To investigate methylation of the adenomatosis polyposis coli homologue (APC2) promoter and its correlation with prognostic implications in Chinese colorectal cancer (CRC). Methods. The mRNA expression of APC2 in colorectal tissues was evaluated using the database of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Methylation analysis of APC2 in tumor (n=66) and corresponding adjacent formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues (n=44) was performed by Sequenom EpiTYPER® and verified by cloning-based bisulfite sequencing analysis. Demethylation and retrieval of APC2 expression in cell lines HT29, HCT116, and SW480 were treated with 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine (5-AZC). Results. Analysis of TCGA showed that APC2 mRNA was significantly downregulated in primary tumors when compared to normal tissues (p<0.05). APC2 methylation was upregulated (43.93% vs 7.31%, p<0.05) in tumors compared to adjacent FFPE tissues. In vitro experiments demonstrated that 5-AZC downregulated the methylation of APC2 and retrieved its expression of mRNA and protein levels (p<0.05). Multivariate Cox regression indicated that APC2_CPG_14 was an independent risk factor for overall survival (HR = 6.38, 95% CI: 1.59–25.64, p<0.05). Conclusion. This study indicates that APC2 is hypermethylated and may be a tumorigenesis biomarker for Chinese CRC patients.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianlin Chen ◽  
Junping Ding ◽  
Wenjie Huang ◽  
Lin Sun ◽  
Jinping Chen ◽  
...  

Previous researches have highlighted that low-expressing deoxyribonuclease1-like 3 (DNASE1L3) may play a role as a potential prognostic biomarker in several cancers. However, the diagnosis and prognosis roles of DNASE1L3 gene in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) remain largely unknown. This research aimed to explore the diagnosis value, prognostic value, and potential oncogenic roles of DNASE1L3 in LUAD. We performed bioinformatics analysis on LUAD datasets downloaded from TCGA (The Cancer Genome Atlas) and GEO (Gene Expression Omnibus), and jointly analyzed with various online databases. We found that both the mRNA and protein levels of DNASE1L3 in patients with LUAD were noticeably lower than that in normal tissues. Low DNASE1L3 expression was significantly associated with higher pathological stages, T stages, and poor prognosis in LUAD cohorts. Multivariate analysis revealed that DNASE1L3 was an independent factor affecting overall survival (HR = 0.680, p = 0.027). Moreover, decreased DNASE1L3 showed strong diagnostic efficiency for LUAD. Results indicated that the mRNA level of DNASE1L3 was positively correlated with the infiltration of various immune cells, immune checkpoints in LUAD, especially with some m6A methylation regulators. In addition, enrichment function analysis revealed that the co-expressed genes may participate in the process of intercellular signal transduction and transmission. GSEA indicated that DNASE1L3 was positively related to G protein-coupled receptor ligand biding (NES = 1.738; P adjust = 0.044; FDR = 0.033) and G alpha (i) signaling events (NES = 1.635; P adjust = 0.044; FDR = 0.033). Our results demonstrated that decreased DNASE1L3 may serve as a novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarker associating with immune infiltrates in lung adenocarcinoma.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Nieves ◽  
A Gonzalez

AbstractIt is well known that, for a particular tissue, the homeostatic and cancer attractors are well apart both in gene expression and in protein expression spaces. By using data for 15 tissues and the corresponding tumors from The Cancer Genome Atlas, and for 49 normal tissues and 20 tumors from The Human Protein Atlas, we show that the set of normal attractors are also well separated from the set of tumors. Roughly speaking, one may say that there is a cancer progression axis orthogonal to the normal tissue differentiation and cancer manifolds. This separation suggests that therapies targeting common genes, which define the cancer axis, may be effective, irrespective of the tissue of origin.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongtao Jia ◽  
Aili Wang ◽  
Haifeng Lian ◽  
Yuanyuan Shen ◽  
Qian Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract Alternative splicing is an important mechanism of regulating eukaryotic gene expression. Understanding the most common alternative splicing events in colorectal cancer (CRC) will help developing diagnostic, prognostic or therapeutic tools in CRC. Publicly available RNA-seq data of 31 pairs of CRC and normal tissues and 18 pairs of metastatic and normal tissues were used to identify alternative splicing events using PSI and DEXSeq methods. The highly significant splicing events were used to search a database of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We identified alternative splicing events in 10 genes marking the signature of CRC (more inclusion of CLK1-E4, COL6A3-E6, CD44v8-10, alternative first exon regulation of ARHGEF9, CHEK1, HKDC1 and HNF4A) or metastasis (decrease of SERPINA1-E1a, CALD-E5b, E6 and FBLN2-E9). Except for CHEK1, all other 9 splicing events were confirmed by TCGA data with 382 CRC tumors and 52 normal controls. Two splicing events (COL6A3 and HKDC1) were found to be significantly associated with patient overall survival. The alternative splicing signatures of the 10 genes are highly consistent with previous reports and/or relevant to cancer biology. The significant association of higher expression of the COL6A3 E5-E6 junction and HKDC1 E1-E2 with better overall survival was firstly reported. This study might be of significant value in the future biomarker, prognosis marker and therapeutics development of CRC.


Author(s):  
Yitong Zhang ◽  
Fenglan Li ◽  
Kexin Fu ◽  
Xiqing Liu ◽  
I-Chia Lien ◽  
...  

S-palmitoylation, catalyzed by a family of 23 zinc finger Asp-His-His-Cys (DHHC) domain-containing (ZDHHC) protein acyltransferases localized on the cell membrane. However, stemness genes modulated by ZDHHCs in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) remain to be defined. Previously, we have constructed a network of cancer stem cell genes, including INCENP, based on mRNA stemness indices (mRNAsi) of LUAD. INCENP has the function of a chromosomal passenger complex locating to centromeres, which is performed by the conserved region of its N-terminal domain. INCENP protein with a deletion of the first non-conserved 26 amino acid sequence failed to target centromeres. However, the exact function of the deleted sequence has not been elucidated. To identify novel cancer stem cell-relevant palmitoylated proteins and responsible ZDHHC enzymes in LUAD, we analyzed multi-omics data obtained from the database of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC), and the Human Protein Atlas (HPA). ZDHHC5 is distinguished from the ZDHHC family for being up-regulated in mRNA and protein levels and associated with malignant prognosis. ZDHHC5 was positively associated with INCENP, and the correlation score increased with LUAD stages. CSS-Palm results showed Cys15 was the S-palmitoylation site of INCENP. Interestingly, Cys15 locates in the 1–26 aa sequence of INCENP, and is a conserved site across species. As INCENP is a nuclear protein, we predicted that the nuclear localization signal of ZDHHC5 was specific to the importin αβ pathway, and the result of immunofluorescence proves that ZDHHC5 is located in the nucleoplasm, in addition to the plasma membrane. Therefore, our study indicates the S-palmitoylation of INCENP mediated by ZDHHC5 as a potential mechanism of S-palmitoylation to modulate CSCs in LUAD.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaobo Zheng ◽  
Yong Gao ◽  
Chune Yu ◽  
Guiquan Fan ◽  
Pengwu Li ◽  
...  

AbstractImmunotherapy involving immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) for enhancing immune system activation is promising for tumor management. However, the patients’ responses to ICIs are different. Here, we applied a non-negative matrix factorization algorithm to establish a robust immune molecular classification system for colorectal cancer (CRC). We obtained data of 1503 CRC patients (training cohort: 488 from The Cancer Genome Atlas; validation cohort: 1015 from the Gene Expression Omnibus). In the training cohort, 42.8% of patients who exhibited significantly higher immunocyte infiltration and enrichment of immune response-associated signatures were subdivided into immune classes. Within the immune class, 53.1% of patients were associated with a worse overall prognosis and belonged to the immune-suppressed subclass, characterized by the activation of stroma-related signatures, genes, immune-suppressive cells, and signaling. The remaining immune class patients belonged to the immune-activated subclass, which was associated with a better prognosis and response to anti-PD-1 therapy. Immune-related subtypes were associated with different copy number alterations, tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte enrichment, PD-1/PD-L1 expression, mutation landscape, and cancer stemness. These results were validated in patients with microsatellite instable CRC. We described a novel immune-related class of CRC, which may be used for selecting candidate patients with CRC for immunotherapy and tailoring optimal immunotherapeutic treatment.


Cancers ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ibrahim ◽  
Dakik ◽  
Vandier ◽  
Chautard ◽  
Paintaud ◽  
...  

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a highly devastating cancer. Ca2+-dependent channels are now considered key regulators of tumor progression. In this study, we aimed to investigate the association of non-voltage gated Ca2+ channels and Ca2+-dependent potassium channels (KCa) with CRC using the transcriptional profile of their genes. Methods: We selected a total of 35 genes covering KCa channels KCNN1–4, KCNMA1 and their subunits KCNMB1–4, endoplasmic reticulum (ER) calcium sensors STIM1 and STIM2, Ca2+ channels ORAI1–3 and the family of cation channels TRP (TRPC1–7, TRPA1, TRPV1/2,4–6 and TRPM1–8). We analyzed their expression in two public CRC datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and GSE39582. Results: KCNN4 and TRPM2 were induced while KCNMA1 and TRPM6 were downregulated in tumor tissues comparing to normal tissues. In proximal tumors, STIM2 and KCNN2 were upregulated while ORAI2 and TRPM6 were downregulated. ORAI1 decreased in lymph node metastatic tumors. TRPC1 and ORAI3 predicted poor prognosis in CRC patients. Moreover, we found that ORAI3/ORAI1 ratio is increased in CRC progression and predicted poor prognosis. Conclusions: KCa and Ca2+ channels could be important contributors to CRC initiation and progression. Our results provide new insights on KCa and Ca2+ channels remodeling in CRC.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junjie Liu ◽  
Wei Lv ◽  
Shuling Li ◽  
Jingwen Deng

Over the past few decades, researchers have become aware of the importance of non-coding RNA, which makes up the vast majority of the transcriptome. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in turn constitute the largest fraction of non-coding transcripts. Increasing evidence has been found for the crucial roles of lncRNAs in both tissue homeostasis and development, and for their functional contributions to and regulation of the development and progression of various human diseases such as cancers. However, so far, only few findings with regards to functional lncRNAs in cancers have been translated into clinical applications. Based on multiple factors such as binding affinity of miRNAs to their lncRNA sponges, we analyzed the competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network for the colorectal cancer RNA-seq datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). After performing the ceRNA network construction and survival analysis, the lncRNA KCNQ1OT1 was found to be significantly upregulated in colorectal cancer tissues and associated with the survival of patients. A KCNQ1OT1-related lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA ceRNA network was constructed. A gene set variation analysis (GSVA) indicated that the expression of the KCNQ1OT1 ceRNA network in colorectal cancer tissues and normal tissues were significantly different, not only in the TCGA-COAD dataset but also in three other GEO datasets used as validation. By predicting comprehensive immune cell subsets from gene expression data, in samples grouped by differential expression levels of the KCNQ1OT1 ceRNA network in a cohort of patients, we found that CD4+, CD8+, and cytotoxic T cells and 14 other immune cell subsets were at different levels in the high- and low-KCNQ1OT1 ceRNA network score groups. These results indicated that the KCNQ1OT1 ceRNA network could be involved in the regulation of the tumor microenvironment, which would provide the rationale to further exploit KCNQ1OT1 as a possible functional contributor to and therapeutic target for colorectal cancer.


Epigenomics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaohui Sun ◽  
Diyu Chen ◽  
Ziqi Jin ◽  
Tianhui Chen ◽  
Aifen Lin ◽  
...  

Aim: To identify methylation-associated genes in the carcinogenesis of colorectal cancer (CRC). Materials & methods: Genome-wide patterns of DNA methylation and gene expression in CRC tissues and adjacent normal tissues were determined and further validated in The Cancer Genome Atlas data and Chinese CRC patients, respectively. Gene overexpression and knockdown cells were constructed to investigate their biological roles in CRC. Results: After validations, hypermethylation of eight genes were found to be correlated with their reduced transcription, and hypomethyaltion of three genes were associated with their upregulation. CADM3, CNRIP1, GRHL2, GRIA4, GSTM2 and NRXN1 were associated with the overall survival of CRC patients. CNRIP1 and GSTM2 were mainly responsible for the proliferation in CRC cells. Conclusion: A total of 11 genes may be promising biomarkers for CRC.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 639-650
Author(s):  
Tatiana Varela ◽  
Vincent Laizé ◽  
Natércia Conceição ◽  
Paulo Caldeira ◽  
Ana Marreiros ◽  
...  

Aim: To provide novel data on the expression of DUSP4 transcripts in colorectal cancer (CRC) tissues and to explore their potential as biomarkers. Materials & methods: DUSP4 transcripts expression was determined by quantitative real-time PCR in tissues from 28 CRC patients. Their association with clinicopathological factors and survival analysis was performed. Data from 380 CRC patients available at The Cancer Genome Atlas project were also analyzed. Results: All transcripts were overexpressed in CRC tissues. Variant X1 was the most upregulated and associated with KRAS mutations and poorly differentiated tumor. Overexpression of DUSP4 transcripts could distinguish all tumor stages from normal tissues. Similar results were found in The Cancer Genome Atlas cohort. Conclusion: DUSP4 transcripts have the potential to serve as diagnostic biomarkers for CRC, particularly variant X1.


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