Project description:Background and Aims: The LIM protein AJUBA participates in the regulation of cell adhesion, mitosis, DNA damage, cell differentiation, proliferation, migration and gene transcription, yet its roles in tumor development and progression are poorly defined. The aim is to determine the role of AJUBA in colorectal tumorigenesis. Methods: We performed data mining in Oncomine databases and immunohistochemistry (IHC) assays on 67 paired colorectal cancer (CRC) samples; we manipulated the AJUBA expression in SW-1116 and Caco-2 cells using specific shRNA and overexpression plasmids and performed assays for cell viability, cell cycle and apoptosis; we performed RNA-seq and qRT-PCR assays to identify genes regulated by AJUBA; we performed western blot, co-immunoprecipitation assays to study the interaction of AJUBA and JAK/STAT; Results: We discovered that AJUBA is highly expressed in CRC and promotes CRC cell growth in culture and in xenograted mice via an inhibition of apoptosis by repression of the IFIT2 gene. AJUBA specifically binds the FERM domain of JAK1 to dissociate JAK1 from the IFNγ recepter, resulted in inhibition of STAT1 phosporylation and concomitantly its nuclear translocation. Clinically, the level of AJUBA in CRC specimens is negatively correlated with the levels of IFIT2 and pSTAT1. Conclusion: Ajuba functions as a specific suppressor of the Interferon-activated JAK1/STAT1 signaling to promote colorectal cancer development via an inhibition of Interferon induced apoptosis.
Project description:RNA-seq of Colon cancer cell line Sw480 with Ajuba OE and KD.Colon cancer, along with its potential for recurrence and metastasis is a major health problem. Understanding the proteins and pathways that regulate cell growth and metastasis may provide new targets for patient care. Ajuba is a LIM domain protein often found overexpressed in cancers, however the exact function role of Ajuba in colon cancer is not known. Our data demonstrates that Ajuba is highly expressed in colon cancer cell lines and tumour tissue compared to adjacent non-tumour tissue. Using publicly available data from The Cancer Genome Atlas, we correlated poor colon cancer patient survival with high Ajuba expression. To investigate the function of Ajuba in colon cancer metastasis we transduced cells with lentiviral constructs to knock down and overexpress Ajuba protein and performed an RNA-seq transcriptomic analysis on each modified line. Analysing the pathways enriched in the differentially expressed genes, we found Ajuba to be involved in cell proliferation, migration and differentiation. We confirmed our findings in biological assays, cells depleted of Ajuba were less proliferative, more sensitive to irradiation, migrated less and were less efficient in colony formation. Our data indicates that increased Ajuba expression observed in colon cancer supports proliferation, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and metastasis.
Project description:Bladder cancer (BC) is one of the most common cancers in the world. T-cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain 1 (TIM-1) are involved in the progression of multiple tumors. However the role of TIM-1 in BC progression is poorly understood. In this study, we searched the Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) database and performed immunohistochemistry (IHC) to assess TIM-1 protein expression in bladder cancer (BC) patients. The results demonstrated that BC with high TIM-1 expression was associated with longer overall survival (OS) and disease-specific survival (DSS) than BC with low TIM-1 expression. Overexpression of TIM-1 inhibits BC cell proliferation in both cell culture and animal experiments. RNA sequencing data indicated that interferon-induced protein with tetratricopeptide repeats (IFIT) genes induced by interferon-α (IFN-α) were significantly enriched among the genes upregulated by TIM-1 overexpression. Mechanistically, our data revealed that TIM-1 promotes IFN-α release and activates the IFIT2/p-STAT1 pathway, which is known to be related to tumor cell proliferation. Moreover, knockdown of IFIT2 in TIM-1-overexpressing BC cells hinders the tumor suppressive effect of TIM-1. Our results revealed that TIM-1 is a potential molecular marker for BC prognosis and indicate that high TIM-1 expression suppresses BC cell proliferation in an IFIT2/p-STAT1-dependent manner.