ISSN: 1837-9664Journal of Cancer
Global reach, higher impact
J Cancer 2020; 11(8):2101-2112. doi:10.7150/jca.37762 This issue Cite
Research Paper
Cadherin 13 Inhibits Pancreatic Cancer Progression and Epithelial-mesenchymal Transition by Wnt/β-Catenin Signaling
1. State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200032, China.
2. Department of Thoracic Surgery, Cancer Research Center, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai 200032, China.
3. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China.
Abstract
Cadherin 13 (CDH13) is an atypical cadherin that exerts tumor-suppressive effects on cancers derived from epithelial cells. Although the CDH13 promoter is frequently hypermethylated in pancreatic cancer (PC), the direct impact of CDH13 on PC is unknown. Accordingly, the expression of CDH13 in PC cell lines and paired PC tissues was examined by immunohistochemistry, quantitative real-time PCR and western blotting. Our findings showed that CDH13 was downregulated in PC tissues and cell lines. Moreover, cell proliferation, migration and invasion were detected by CCK-8 assay, transwell migration assay and transwell invasion assay, respectively. Xenograft tumor experiments were used to determine the biological function of CDH13 in vivo. As revealed by our data, CDH13 overexpression significantly inhibited the proliferation, migration and invasion of human PC cells in vitro. The inhibitory effect of CDH13 on PC was further confirmed in animal models. Mice subcutaneously or orthotopically transplanted with CDH13-overexpressing CFPAC-1 cells developed significantly smaller tumors with less liver metastases and mesenteric metastases than those of the control group. Next, transcriptomics and western blot analysis were used to identify the underlying mechanisms. Further molecular mechanism studies showed that CDH13 overexpression inhibited the activation of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway and regulated the expression of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-related markers. Our results indicated that CDH13 displayed an inhibitory effect on PC and suggested that CDH13 might be a potential biomarker and a new therapeutic target for PC.
Keywords: CDH13, pancreatic cancer, metastasis, epithelial-mesenchymal transition.
Citation styles
