Department of Precision Diagnostic and Therapeutic Technology, City University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Futian Research Institute, Shenzhen, 518057, China.
Department of Biomedical Sciences, and Tung Biomedical Sciences Centre, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, 999077, China.
Oncogene. 2024 Jul;43(30):2295-2306. doi: 10.1038/s41388-024-03075-4. Epub 2024 Jun 10.
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) play a critical role as initiators in tumor metastasis, which unlocks an irreversible process of cancer progression. Regarding the fluid environment of intravascular CTCs, a comprehensive understanding of the impact of hemodynamic shear stress on CTCs is of profound significance but remains vague. Here, we report a microfluidic circulatory system that can emulate the CTC microenvironment to research the responses of typical liver cancer cells to varying levels of fluid shear stress (FSS). We observe that HepG2 cells surviving FSS exhibit a marked overexpression of TLR4 and TPPP3, which are shown to be associated with the colony formation, migration, and anti-apoptosis abilities of HepG2. Furthermore, overexpression of these two genes in another liver cancer cell line with normally low TLR4 and TPPP3 expression, SK-Hep-1 cells, by lentivirus-mediated transfection also confirms the critical role of TLR4 and TPPP3 in improving colony formation, migration, and survival capability under a fluid environment. Interestingly, in vivo experiments show SK-Hep-1 cells, overexpressed with these genes, have enhanced metastatic potential to the liver and lungs in mouse models via tail vein injection. Mechanistically, TLR4 and TPPP3 upregulated by FSS may increase FSS-mediated cell survival and metastasis through the p53-Bax signaling pathway. Moreover, elevated levels of these genes correlate with poorer overall survival in liver cancer patients, suggesting that our findings could offer new therapeutic strategies for early cancer diagnosis and targeted treatment development.
循环肿瘤细胞 (CTCs) 在肿瘤转移中起着关键的启动子作用,它开启了癌症进展的不可逆转过程。鉴于血管内 CTCs 的流体环境,全面了解血流切应力对 CTCs 的影响具有深远的意义,但目前仍不清楚。在这里,我们报告了一种微流循环系统,可以模拟 CTC 的微环境,研究典型肝癌细胞对不同水平的流体切应力 (FSS) 的反应。我们观察到,在 FSS 中存活的 HepG2 细胞 TLR4 和 TPPP3 的表达显著上调,这与 HepG2 的集落形成、迁移和抗凋亡能力有关。此外,通过慢病毒介导的转染,在 TLR4 和 TPPP3 表达通常较低的另一种肝癌细胞系 SK-Hep-1 中过表达这两个基因,也证实了 TLR4 和 TPPP3 在改善集落形成、迁移和在流体环境下的生存能力方面的关键作用。有趣的是,体内实验表明,通过尾静脉注射,过表达这些基因的 SK-Hep-1 细胞在小鼠模型中对肝脏和肺部的转移潜能增强。从机制上讲,FSS 上调的 TLR4 和 TPPP3 可能通过 p53-Bax 信号通路增加 FSS 介导的细胞存活和转移。此外,这些基因水平的升高与肝癌患者总体生存率较差相关,这表明我们的研究结果可为早期癌症诊断和靶向治疗的发展提供新的治疗策略。
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