Background
Colorectal cancer is the second most common cancer in the United States, and its incidence has been increasing in developing countries [
1,
2]. It is estimated that over 1 million new cases are diagnosed each year worldwide, and approximately 50 % of these patients die of colorectal cancer [
3]. Currently, surgical resection is the optimal treatment for colorectal cancer, and chemotherapy serves as one of the important adjuvant therapies for its treatment [
4]. However, the development of acquired drug resistance to conventional chemotherapeutics has become a major obstacle in colorectal cancer treatment [
5,
6]. Such limitation highlights the imperative need for identifying novel treatment strategies which may help overcome drug resistance and enhance tumor cell response to anti-cancer drugs.
It is generally believed that carcinogenesis and development of colorectal cancer comprises a series of complicated processes regulated by aberrantly protein expression and alterations of morphological features during malignant progression [
7‐
9]. The term epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) refers to the complicated progress in which tumor cell loses epithelial properties and gains mesenchymal morphology with capacity for metastasis [
10,
11]. EMT is involved in wound healing, stem cell behaviour, development, and contributes to cancer progression [
12‐
14]. Emerging evidence suggests that EMT also plays a critical role in the regulation of chemoresistance properties of cancer cells [
15,
16]. Eukaryotic translation initiation factor 5A2 (eIF5A2) mainly acts as an elongation factor during mRNA translation step. It has been identified as an oncogene in ovarian cancer, suggesting that aberrant expression of eIF5A2 may be responsible for the malignant behavior of cancer cells [
17‐
19]. However, the relationship of eIF5A2 and drug resistance in colorectal cancer has never been explored. Hence, the present study aimed to investigate the biological role of eIF5A2 in colorectal cancer chemoresistance.
Discussion
As an important adjuvant treatment, chemotherapy serves as an necessary component of postoperative therapy for colorectal cancer [
20]. However, most traditional chemotherapeutic drugs leads to drug resistance and this has become a major obstacle to the triumph of chemotherapy [
21]. Therefore, it is imperative to identify novel therapeutic targets which are involved in the acquisition of drug resistance. In this study, we demonstrated that eIF5A2 was associated with the chemoresistance to doxorubicin in colorectal cancer cells.
eIF5A2, an essential component of translation elongation, has been identified to be a novel oncogenic protein in many types of human cancer [
17,
18]. Upregulation of eIF5A2 has been reported in many cancers including ovarian cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, and bladder cancer [
22‐
24]. Both in vitro and in vivo studies suggest that eIF5A2 could promote cancer cell proliferation and increase cancer cell metastasis [
22]. Furthermore, it is suggested that eIF5A2 may serve as prognostic biomarker for poor survival of hepatocellular carcinoma patients [
25]. In a recent study, eIF5A2 was found to be up-regulated in colorectal cancer patients, and it was suggested to be an independent predictor of shortened survival [
26]. Moreover, eIF5A is considered as a potential therapeutic target in many human disorders. In HT-29 and HeLa cells, eIF5A can induce p53-independent apoptosis through mitochondrial pathway [
27]. In our study, we found that eIF5A2-negative colon cancer cells were more sensitive to doxorubicin compare with the eIF5A2-positive cells. Thus we hypothesized that eIF5A2 may play an important role in the chemoresistance of colon cancer cells. To test this hypothesis, eIF5A2 siRNA was transfected into LOVO and SW480 cells and we observed enhanced chemosensitivity to doxorubicin. Moreover, eIF5A2 overexpression reduced doxorubicin sensitivity in colon cancer cells. Taken together, these results demonstrated that eIF5A2 promoted the chemoresistance to doxorubicin in colon cancer cells.
It is generally believed that tumorigenesis is a multistep process regulated by aberrantly protein expression and alterations of morphological and molecular features during malignant progression [
28]. One such change is the loss of epithelial property and gain of mesenchymal morphology, which suggests the initiation of EMT [
29]. Accumulating evidences suggest that EMT plays crucial roles in the acquired chemoresistance in many kinds of cancer, including colorectal cancer [
30‐
32]. Thus, we investigated whether eIF5A2 was involved in regulation of the EMT during the chemoresistance to doxorubicin. Intriguingly, our results demonstrated that overexpression of eIF5A2 significantly decreased the protein level of E-cadherin and increased vimentin expression in HCT116, HT29, LOVO and SW480 cells. On the contrary, downregulation of eIF5A2 reversed the EMT in LOVO and SW480 cells. Furthermore, we found that blockade of EMT with Twist siRNA abolished eIF5A2-regulated chemoresistance. These findings suggested that regulation of EMT was mainly responsible for eIF5A2-mediated doxorubicin sensitivity in colon cancer cells.
In conclusion, our study demonstrated that eIF5A2 promoted the chemoresistance to doxorubicin through regulation of EMT in colon cancer cells. Moreover, specific downregulation of eIF5A2 could reverse the EMT and enhance chemosensitivity to doxorubicin in colon cancer cells. Our study provided a new potential strategy for the reversal of drug resistance in colorectal cancer therapy.
Methods
Cell culture
Human colon cancer cell lines HCT116, HT29, LOVO and SW480 were purchase d from the ATCC (Manassas, VA, USA) and cultured in DMEM (Gibco, Carlsbad, CA, USA) supplemented with 10 % FBS and 1 % penicillin⁄streptomycin. All cells were maintained at 37 °C in 5 % CO2 incubator.
Cell viability assay
Tumor cells were seeded onto 96-well plates at 3 × 103 cells⁄well. The medium was replaced with the corresponding serum-free medium for 24 h, then serum-free medium was replaced with complete medium containing the drugs at the indicated doses for 48 h. Then 10 µL⁄well CCK-8 solution (Dojindo, Kumamoto, Japan) was added and incubated with the plates for 3 h, and the absorbance was determined at 450 nm using an MRX II microplate reader (Dynex, Chantilly, VA, USA).
Transfection
Tumor cells were transfected with eIF5A2 siRNA, eIF5A2 siRNA or plasmid encoding eIF5A2 using Lipofectamine 2000 (Invitrogen, USA) according to the manufacturer’s instruction. The transfection medium (Opti-MEM; Gibco, USA) was replaced with complete medium 12 h after transfection, and the cells were incubated for the indicated times.
Western blot analysis
Tumor cells were lysed in 50 μL cell lysis buffer (Cell Signaling, Danvers, MA, USA) containing protease inhibitors (Sigma, USA). Whole cell lysates were prepared and fractioned were separated by 10 % SDS-PAGE and proteins were transferred to polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) membranes (Millipore, Billerica, MA, USA). The membranes were then incubated with primary antibodies (E-cadherin, Vimentin or eIF5A2, diluted 1:1000; Abcam, Cambridge, USA) at 4 °C overnight. The membranes were washed three times with TBST and then incubated with the appropriate HRP-conjugated secondary antibodies for 1 h at room temperature. Protein expression was detected by chemiluminescence (GE Healthcare, Piscataway, NJ, USA).
Statistical analysis
Each experiment was performed in triplicate, and repeated at least three times. All the data were presented as mean ± SD and treated for statistics analysis by SPSS program. Comparison between groups was made using ANOVA and statistically significant difference was defined as P < 0.05.
Authors’ contributions
YB designed this project, YLL, XW, and WMF written this paper, XRS and HHG conduct the western blot analysis, CWT and XJZ performed the statistical
study, QLS and HBY performed the cell culture and viability assay. All authors
read and approved the final manuscript.
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