A novel tumor suppressor SPINK5 targets Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway in esophageal cancer.

Esophageal cancer is one of the most common tumor in the world, and the morbidity rate is as high as 100/100 000 in some parts of China. Therefore, it is important and urgent to explore the pathogenesis of esophageal cancer and find new therapeutic targets for esophageal cancer. In this study, we found that a novel tumor suppressor SPINK5 is significantly reduced in the development of esophageal cancer, and is closely related to the pathological differentiation and lymph node metastasis of esophageal cancer via bioinformatics analysis and esophageal cancer tissue array. Further studies have found that SPINK5 is closely related to Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway by bioinformatics analysis and western blot. In esophageal cancer cells, SPINK5 overexpression can inhibit Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. Combined with LiCl or MG-132 treatment, SPINK5 can inhibit GSK3β phosphorylation and promote β-catenin protein degradation, thus inhibit Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. In vivo study, SPINK5 overexpression can significantly inhibit the growth of esophageal cancer cells. Our study shows that SPINK5 can inhibit the proliferation, migration, and invasion of esophageal cancer cells by inhibiting Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, and thus plays an important role in the development of esophageal cancer, and may serve as a treatment target of esophageal cancer.