Inactivation of ERK1/2 in cancer-associated hepatic stellate cells suppresses cancer-stromal interaction by regulating extracellular matrix in fibrosis.

ABSTRACT: The ERK1/2 pathway is involved in epithelial-mesenchymal transformation and cell cycle of tumor cells in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In the present study, we investigated the involvement of ERK1/2 activation on hepatic stellate cells (HSCs). We identified ERK1/2 phosphorylation in activated HSCs of HCC samples. We found that tumor cells promoted the migration and invasion capacity of HSCs by activating ERK1/2 phosphorylation. Using high throughput transcriptome sequencing analysis, we found that ERK1/2 inhibition altered genes significantly correlated to signaling pathways involved in extracellular matrix remodeling. We screened genes and demonstrated that the ERK1/2 inhibition-related gene set significantly correlated to cancer-associated fibroblast infiltration in TCGA HCC tumor samp

SUBMITTER: Lin Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10998762 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature