Researchers Reveal A New Mechanism Governing Lung Cancer Cell Mobility

Tumor cells can become highly motile and aggressive through a biological process called “epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)”. Cells underwent EMT acquire alterations in identity and behavior, including metastatic and invasive capacity, escape from apoptosis and senescence, and immune defense, which are all important for cancer progression. Recently, researchers from Chinese Academy of Sciences uncovered that androgen induced-1 (TMEPAI) is a novel regulator for epithelial plasticity and EMT in human lung cancer cells.

 

TMEPAI is a prostate transmembrane protein, which abundantly expressed in prostate. HU Ying and other colleagues, led by Dr. SONG Jianguo from Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, detected a rapid and sustained induction of TMEPAI during EMT in multiple lung cancer cell lines. They observed that the expression levels of TMEPAI are prone to markedly increase in lung cancer cells with stronger mesenchymal phenotype. Cells depleted TMEPAI lost their ability to undergo EMT and migration in both lung adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. These findings indicate that TMEPAI is implicated in epithelial plasticity and EMT induction. Based on their previous work that ferritin heavy chain (FHC) down-regulation mediated ROS production and insulin receptor substrate-1 (IRS-1) are both involved in EMT, the researchers found that TMEPAI functioned as an upstream regulator for ROS generation and IRS-1 expression during EMT. Further, TMEPAI is significantly overexpressed from early to late stage of lung tumors.

 

The relevant research article entitled “TMEPAI regulates EMT in lung cancer cells by modulating the ROS and IRS-1 signaling pathways” was published in Carcinogenesis on Apr 24^th, 2013. This study provides a new mechanistic understanding of EMT of lung cancer cells, which may potentially be of significance in improving the clinical diagnosis and treatment of lung cancers. It is supported by the grants from Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and Natural Science Foundation of China.

 

CONTACT:

SONG Jianguo

Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai, China

Tel: 86-21-54921167

Email: jgsong@sibcb.ac.cn

 

Left: The expression of TMEPAI in human lung SCC. Right: Schematic illustration of TMEPAI-mediated EMT and cell migration. (Image by Dr. SONG Jianguo’s group)