Sun Jin-Ping, Ge Quan-Xing, Ren Zheng, Sun Xin-Fang, Xie Shu-Ping
Department of Gastroenterology, Huaihe Hospital of Henan University No. 115 Ximen Street, Longting District Kaifeng 475000 China
RSC Adv. 2018 Dec 11;8(72):41415-41421. doi: 10.1039/c8ra06860g. eCollection 2018 Dec 7.
HOXB5, a member of the HOX gene family, is a developmental gene which encodes homeoproteins and is known to be a crucial player in development of enteric nervous systems. Recently, HOXB5 was reported to be associated with cancer progression. However, the specific effect of HOXB5 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unclear. In this study, we demonstrated the important role of HOXB5 in HCC. We showed that HOXB5 was up-regulated in HCC tissues and cell lines. Furthermore, down-regulation of HOXB5 inhibited TGF-β-induced HCC cell migration and invasion and suppressed tumor metastasis . We also found that the PI3K/Akt pathway partly accounted for the mechanisms underlying the inhibitory effect of HOXB5 down-regulation on TGF-β-induced HCC progression. Taken together, these findings demonstrated that down-regulation of HOXB5 inhibits TGF-β-induced migration and invasion in HCC cells inactivation of the PI3K/Akt pathway. Thus, HOXB5 may be a novel therapeutic target for HCC treatment.
HOXB5是HOX基因家族的成员之一，是一种发育基因，编码同源结构域蛋白，已知在肠神经系统发育中起关键作用。最近，有报道称HOXB5与癌症进展相关。然而，HOXB5在肝细胞癌（HCC）中的具体作用仍不清楚。在本研究中，我们证明了HOXB5在HCC中的重要作用。我们发现HOXB5在HCC组织和细胞系中上调。此外，HOXB5的下调抑制了TGF-β诱导的HCC细胞迁移和侵袭，并抑制了肿瘤转移。我们还发现PI3K/Akt信号通路部分解释了HOXB5下调对TGF-β诱导的HCC进展的抑制作用机制。综上所述，这些发现表明HOXB5的下调通过PI3K/Akt信号通路的失活抑制了TGF-β诱导的HCC细胞迁移和侵袭。因此，HOXB5可能是HCC治疗的一个新的治疗靶点。
