HR23A-knockdown lung cancer cells exhibit epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and gain stemness properties through increased Twist1 stability.

The epithelial-mesenchymal transition is a major cause of cancer metastasis, and deregulation of the transcription factor, Twist1, is a critical molecular event in the epithelial-mesenchymal transition. The importance of Twist1 protein turnover in this process has not yet been defined. Here, we show that HR23A directly targets the Twist1 protein without changing its gene transcription. Our experiments reveal that: HR23A interacts with Twist1, and this promotes the ubiquitin-mediated proteasomal degradation of Twist1. Depletion of HR23A enhances Twist1 protein levels, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, cancer cell migration and various cancer stemness properties, including the expression of major pluripotency factors, the capacity for tumor-sphere formation in culture and the expression of cancer stem cell surface markers. The increases of these stemness properties are reversed by ectopic expression of HR23A or further knockdown of Twist1 in HR23A-depleted cells. Thus, HR23A-knockdown cells appear to undergo epithelial-mesenchymal transition and take on certain attributes of cancer stemness. Together, our findings indicate that HR23A importantly contributes to regulating Twist1 protein stability, and suggest that altering the stability of Twist1 by modulating HR23A may be a new avenue for therapeutic intervention in cancer.