Sun Limei, Zhang Qingfu, Li Yang, Tang Na, Qiu Xueshan
Department of Pathology, The First Affiliated Hospital and College of Basic Medical Sciences of China Medical University Shenyang 110122, PR China.
Int J Clin Exp Pathol. 2015 Dec 1;8(12):15729-38. eCollection 2015.
Lymphangiogenesis has received considerable attention and become a new research hotspot of tumor metastasis. Recently, C-C chemokine receptor 7 (CCR7) is known to promote metastasis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells into lymph nodes. In this study, we investigated the relationship between CCL21/CCR7 and the lymphangiogenic factor vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-D in human lung cancer cells and its impact on patients' prognosis. We found that CCL21/CCR7 increase the expression of VEGF-D in NSCLC Cell Lines through induced ERK1/2 and Akt phosphorylation. In addition, our study found that the expression levels of CCR7 and CCL21 were correlated with VEGF-D, lymphatic vessels density (LVD), clinical stages, lymph node metastasis, and patient Survival in 90 human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) specimens. Taken together, our results provide evidence that CCL21/CCR7 induce VEGF-D up-regulation and promote lymphangiogenesis via ERK/Akt pathway in lung cancer.
淋巴管生成已受到广泛关注,并成为肿瘤转移研究的新热点。最近,已知C-C趋化因子受体7(CCR7)可促进非小细胞肺癌(NSCLC)细胞转移至淋巴结。在本研究中,我们调查了人肺癌细胞中CCL21/CCR7与淋巴管生成因子血管内皮生长因子(VEGF)-D之间的关系及其对患者预后的影响。我们发现CCL21/CCR7通过诱导ERK1/2和Akt磷酸化增加NSCLC细胞系中VEGF-D的表达。此外,我们的研究发现,在90例人非小细胞肺癌(NSCLC)标本中,CCR7和CCL21的表达水平与VEGF-D、淋巴管密度(LVD)、临床分期、淋巴结转移及患者生存率相关。综上所述,我们的结果表明CCL21/CCR7通过ERK/Akt途径诱导VEGF-D上调并促进肺癌中的淋巴管生成。