Epithelial-mesenchymal transition-converted tumor cells can induce T-cell apoptosis through upregulation of programmed death ligand 1 expression in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

ABSTRACT: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is an aggressive tumor, and it is urgently needed to develop novel therapeutic strategies including immunotherapy. In this study, we investigated the upregulation of the programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) due to epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in ESCC using an in vitro treatment system with the EMT inducer, glycogen synthase kinase (GSK)-3 inhibitor, and we also analyzed the correlation of EMT and PD-L1 expression in the clinical tumor samples of both tissue microarray (TMA) samples (n = 177) and whole tissue samples (n = 21). As a result, the inhibition of GSK-3β induces EMT phenotype with upregulated vimentin and downregulated E-cadherin as well as increased Snail and Zinc finger E box-binding homeobox (ZEB)-1 gene expression. Simultaneous

SUBMITTER: Thar Min AK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6051241 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature