Zhou Pengcheng, Erfani Sonia, Liu Zeyi, Jia Changhe, Chen Yecang, Xu Bingwei, Deng Xinyu, Alfáro Jose E, Chen Li, Napier Dana, Lu Michael, Huang Jian-An, Liu Chunming, Thibault Olivier, Segal Rosalind, Zhou Binhua P, Kyprianou Natasha, Horbinski Craig, Yang Xiuwei H
Department of Cancer Biology and Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Department of Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences, Markey Cancer Center and University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA.
Oncotarget. 2015 Oct 6;6(30):29675-93. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.4896.
Glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer, is featured by high tumor cell motility and invasiveness, which not only fuel tumor infiltration, but also enable escape from surgical or other clinical interventions. Thus, better understanding of how these malignant traits are controlled will be key to the discovery of novel biomarkers and therapies against this deadly disease. Tetraspanin CD151 and its associated α3β1 integrin have been implicated in facilitating tumor progression across multiple cancer types. How these adhesion molecules are involved in the progression of glioblastoma, however, remains largely unclear. Here, we examined an in-house tissue microarray-based cohort of 96 patient biopsies and TCGA dataset to evaluate the clinical significance of CD151 and α3β1 integrin. Functional and signaling analyses were also conducted to understand how these molecules promote the aggressiveness of glioblastoma at molecular and cellular levels. Results from our analyses showed that CD151 and α3 integrin were significantly elevated in glioblastomas at both protein and mRNA levels, and exhibited strong inverse correlation with patient survival (p < 0.006). These adhesion molecules also formed tight protein complexes and synergized with EGF/EGFR to accelerate tumor cell motility and invasion. Furthermore, disruption of such complexes enhanced the survival of tumor-bearing mice in a xenograft model, and impaired activation of FAK and small GTPases. Also, knockdown- or pharmacological agent-based attenuation of EGFR, FAK or Graf (ARHGAP26)/small GTPase-mediated pathways markedly mitigated the aggressiveness of glioblastoma cells. Collectively, our findings provide clinical, molecular and cellular evidence of CD151-α3β1 integrin complexes as promising prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets for glioblastoma.
胶质母细胞瘤是最具侵袭性的脑癌形式之一,其特征是肿瘤细胞具有高运动性和侵袭性,这不仅助长肿瘤浸润,还能使其逃避手术或其他临床干预。因此,更好地了解这些恶性特征是如何被控制的,将是发现针对这种致命疾病的新型生物标志物和疗法的关键。四跨膜蛋白CD151及其相关的α3β1整合素已被证明在多种癌症类型的肿瘤进展中发挥促进作用。然而,这些黏附分子如何参与胶质母细胞瘤的进展,在很大程度上仍不清楚。在这里,我们检测了一个基于内部组织芯片的包含96例患者活检样本的队列以及TCGA数据集,以评估CD151和α3β1整合素的临床意义。还进行了功能和信号分析,以了解这些分子如何在分子和细胞水平上促进胶质母细胞瘤的侵袭性。我们的分析结果表明,CD151和α3整合素在胶质母细胞瘤中的蛋白质和mRNA水平均显著升高,并且与患者生存率呈强烈负相关(p < 0.006)。这些黏附分子还形成紧密的蛋白质复合物,并与EGF/EGFR协同作用以加速肿瘤细胞的运动和侵袭。此外,破坏这些复合物可提高异种移植模型中荷瘤小鼠的生存率,并削弱FAK和小GTP酶的激活。同样,基于敲低或药物制剂对EGFR、FAK或Graf(ARHGAP26)/小GTP酶介导的途径进行的抑制,可显著减轻胶质母细胞瘤细胞的侵袭性。总体而言,我们的研究结果提供了临床、分子和细胞证据,表明CD151-α3β1整合素复合物有望成为胶质母细胞瘤的预后生物标志物和治疗靶点。