Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, The First People's Hospital of Gui Yang, Gui Yang, China.
Department of Pathology, The First People's Hospital of Gui Yang, Gui Yang, China.
Clin Exp Pharmacol Physiol. 2022 Sep;49(9):988-997. doi: 10.1111/1440-1681.13685. Epub 2022 Jun 28.
Colorectal cancer (CRC) constitutes a major public health problem because of the high rate of morbidity and mortality. Chemotherapy and immunotherapy are the major and promising strategies for cancer patients including CRC; nevertheless, chemoresistance and immune escape limit the final efficacy of the above approaches. FERMT3 has proven to exert a critical role in the immune system and has contradictive effects on cancer progression. In this study, bioinformatics database analysis and clinical specimen detection both corroborated the downregulation of FERMT3 in CRC tissues and cells. Of interest, overexpression of FERMT3 suppressed CRC cell invasion and sensitized cells to 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) by reducing cell viability and increasing cell apoptosis and caspase 3 activity. Noticeably, FERMT3 upregulation enhanced natural killer (NK) cells activation by increasing secretions of interferon γ (IFN-γ) and tumour necrosis factor α (TNF-α) when NK cells were co-cultured with CRC cells. Importantly, upregulation of FERMT3 promoted NK cell-mediated killing of CRC cells. Mechanically, FERMT3 inhibited the aberrant activation of Wnt/β-catenin signalling and the subsequent programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression in CRC cells. Moreover, knockdown of PD-L1 suppressed CRC cell invasion, 5-FU resistance and NK cells-mediated tumour killing. Additionally, reactivating the Wnt/β-catenin signalling with a specific WNT agonist CAS 853220-52-7 overturned the efficacy of FERMT3 overexpression against CRC cell invasion, 5-FU chemoresistance and cell susceptibility to NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity. Therefore, the current findings substantiate that FERMT3 elevation may attenuate CRC cell chemoresistance and NK cell-mediated immune response to tumour cells by inhibiting Wnt/β-catenin-PD-L1 signalling. Therefore, FERMT3 elevation may be a promising therapeutic approach to overcome chemoresistance and immune evasion in CRC.
结直肠癌(CRC)由于发病率和死亡率高,是一个主要的公共卫生问题。化疗和免疫疗法是癌症患者(包括 CRC 患者)的主要且有前途的治疗策略;然而,化疗耐药和免疫逃逸限制了上述方法的最终疗效。FERMT3 已被证明在免疫系统中发挥关键作用,并对癌症的进展具有矛盾的影响。在这项研究中,生物信息学数据库分析和临床标本检测均证实 FERMT3 在 CRC 组织和细胞中下调。有趣的是,过表达 FERMT3 通过降低细胞活力、增加细胞凋亡和 caspase 3 活性来抑制 CRC 细胞侵袭,并使细胞对 5-氟尿嘧啶(5-FU)敏感。值得注意的是,当 NK 细胞与 CRC 细胞共培养时,FERMT3 的上调增加了干扰素 γ(IFN-γ)和肿瘤坏死因子 α(TNF-α)的分泌,从而增强了 NK 细胞的激活。重要的是,FERMT3 的上调促进了 NK 细胞对 CRC 细胞的杀伤。机制上,FERMT3 抑制了 CRC 细胞中异常激活的 Wnt/β-catenin 信号通路和随后的程序性死亡配体 1(PD-L1)表达。此外,敲低 PD-L1 抑制了 CRC 细胞的侵袭、5-FU 耐药性和 NK 细胞介导的肿瘤杀伤。此外,用特异性 WNT 激动剂 CAS 853220-52-7 重新激活 Wnt/β-catenin 信号通路,推翻了 FERMT3 过表达对 CRC 细胞侵袭、5-FU 化疗耐药性和细胞对 NK 细胞介导的细胞毒性的作用。因此,目前的研究结果证实,通过抑制 Wnt/β-catenin-PD-L1 信号通路,FERMT3 的升高可能会减轻 CRC 细胞的化疗耐药性和 NK 细胞对肿瘤细胞的免疫反应。因此,FERMT3 的升高可能是克服 CRC 化疗耐药性和免疫逃逸的一种有前途的治疗方法。