Overexpression of DUSP26 gene suppressed the proliferation, migration, and invasion of human prostate cancer cells.

Prostate cancer (PCa) is threatening the health of millions of people, the pathological mechanism of prostate cancer has not been fully elaborated, and needs to be further explored. Here, we found that the expression of DUSP26 is dramatically suppressed, and a positive connection of its expression with PCa prognosis was also observed. In vitro, overexpression of DUSP26 significantly inhibited the proliferative, migrative, and invasive capacities of PC3 cells, DUSP26 silencing presented opposite results. Tumor formation experiments in subcutaneous nude mice demonstrated that DUSP26 overexpression could significantly suppress PC3 growth in vivo. Moreover, the mechanism of DUSP26 gene and PCa was discovered by RNA-Seq analysis. We found that DUSP26 significantly inhibited MAPK signaling pathway activation, and further experiments displayed that DUSP26 could impair TAK1, p38, and JNK phosphorylation. Interestingly, treatment with the TAK1 inhibitor (iTAK1) attenuated the effect of DUSP26 on PC3 cells. Together, these results suggested that DUSP26 may serve as a novel therapeutic target for PC3 cell type PCa, the underlying mechanism may be through TAK1-JNK/p38 signaling.