Department of Pathology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China.
Bioengineered. 2021 Dec;12(2):11567-11575. doi: 10.1080/21655979.2021.1971028.
Emerging evidence has demonstrated that inhibin subunit beta A (INHBA) is dysregulated and plays a critical role in various cancers. With the development of sequencing technology, studies have discovered that INHBA is overexpressed in breast cancer tissues. However, the biological roles of INHBA in breast cancer are still far to clear. In the present study, we analyzed the INHBA expression in the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was conducted to assess the expression of INHBA in breast cancer cell lines. Cell proliferation, invasion and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) were determined by using CCK-8, EdU, Transwell and western blot assays. The result showed that INHBA was highly expressed in breast cancer cell lines. Functional analysis revealed that silence or elevation of INHBA inhibited or promoted the proliferation, migration, invasion and EMT and Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway-related markers of MCF-7 cells. Mechanically, blocking of Wnt/β-catenin pathway by XAV939 reversed the promotion effect of INHBA overexpression on breast cancer cells' proliferation, migration and invasion. Our findings emphasized that INHBA may act as an oncogene via activating the Wnt/β-catenin pathway, which may provide a potential therapeutic target for the treatment of breast cancer.
新出现的证据表明，抑制素亚基β A (INHBA) 失调并在各种癌症中发挥关键作用。随着测序技术的发展，研究发现 INHBA 在乳腺癌组织中过表达。然而，INHBA 在乳腺癌中的生物学作用仍不清楚。在本研究中，我们分析了癌症基因组图谱 (TCGA) 数据库中的 INHBA 表达。通过实时定量聚合酶链反应 (qRT-PCR) 评估乳腺癌细胞系中 INHBA 的表达。通过 CCK-8、EdU、Transwell 和 Western blot 检测评估细胞增殖、侵袭和上皮-间充质转化 (EMT)。结果表明，INHBA 在乳腺癌细胞系中高表达。功能分析表明，沉默或上调 INHBA 抑制或促进 MCF-7 细胞的增殖、迁移、侵袭和 EMT 及 Wnt/β-catenin 信号通路相关标志物的表达。机制上，XAV939 阻断 Wnt/β-catenin 通路可逆转 INHBA 过表达对乳腺癌细胞增殖、迁移和侵袭的促进作用。我们的研究结果强调，INHBA 可能通过激活 Wnt/β-catenin 通路作为癌基因发挥作用，这可能为治疗乳腺癌提供潜在的治疗靶点。
