OncoTargets and Therapy (Jun 2020)

Down-Regulated CMTM2 Promotes Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

  • Zhang S,
  • Tian R,
  • Bei C,
  • Zhang H,
  • Kong J,
  • Zheng C,
  • Song X,
  • Li D,
  • Tan H,
  • Zhu X,
  • Tan S

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 13
pp. 5731 – 5741

Abstract

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Shidong Zhang,1,* Run Tian,1,* Chunhua Bei,1 Huixia Zhang,1 Juan Kong,1 Chuanjun Zheng,1 Xin Song,1 Di Li,1 Hongzhuan Tan,2 Xiaonian Zhu,1 Shengkui Tan1,2 1Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, School of Public Health, Guilin Medical University, Guilin 541199, Guangxi, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, School of Public Health, Central South University, Changsha 410005, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Shengkui Tan; Xiaonian Zhu Email [email protected]; [email protected]: Our recent study identified that human chemokine-like factor (CKLF)-like MARVEL transmembrane domain-containing family member 2 (CMTM2) was deregulated in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues and posed as a potential tumor suppressor. However, the mechanism of CMTM2 in HCC occurrence and development has not been well elaborated.Materials and Methods: The expression of CMTM2 was knocked-down by RNA interruption in Huh-7 and SMMC7721 cells. Cell proliferation ability was detected by CCK8 test and colony formation assay. The cell invasion and migration were measured by wound healing and Transwell assay.Results: We found that the cell proliferation was significantly increased by interruption of CMTM2 expression, both in Huh-7 and SMMC7721 cells. Moreover, down-regulated CMTM2 could promote the invasion and migration ability of HCC cells through inducing the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process. We further discovered that both the expression of CMTM2 and the EMT-associated marker E-cadherin were decreased in the same thirty cases of HCC tissues compared with the corresponding adjacent non-tumor tissues. Pearson correlation test showed that there was a significantly positive correlation between CMTM2 and E-cadherin in HCC tissues (P< 0.05).Conclusion: Based on the results of cell model and HCC tissues, our study suggests that down-regulated CMTM2 promotes HCC metastasis through inducing the EMT process.Keywords: CMTM2, CMTM family members, HCC, metastasis, EMT

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