Systematic pan-cancer analysis identifies transmembrane protein 158 as a potential therapeutic, prognostic and immunological biomarker

CMTM 6 promotes the development of thyroid cancer by inhibiting NIS activity through activating the MAPK signaling pathway

Thyroid cancer is the most common type of endocrine cancer. Chemokine-like factor (CKLF)-like MARVEL transmembrane domain containing 6 (CMTM6) is recognized as one of its potential immunotherapy targets. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role and molecular mechanism of CMTM6 in regulating the development of thyroid cancer cells. In this study, expression levels of CMTM6 and the sodium/iodide symporter (NIS) were detected by qRT-PCR. Additionally, colony formation assay and flow cytometry were used to detect cell proliferation and apoptosis, while expression levels of various proteins were assessed using Western blotting. Further, the apoptosis and invasion capacity of cells were investigated by scratch and transwell experiments. Finally, the effect of CMTM6 on the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of thyroid cancer cells was determined by immunofluorescence assay, which measured the expression levels of epithelial and mesenchymal phenotypic markers. The results of qRT-PCR experiments showed that CMTM6 was highly expressed in thyroid cancer tissues and cells. In addition, knockdown of CMTM6 expression significantly increased NIS expression. Function experiments demonstrated that small interfering (si)-CMTM6 treatment inhibited the proliferation, migration, invasion, and EMT of thyroid cancer cells, while promoting apoptosis of FTC133 cells. Furthermore, mechanistic studies showed that mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) phosphorylation were inhibited by si-CMTM6, as demonstrated by Western blot experiments. In conclusion, our findings demonstrated the role of CMTM6 in the metastasis of thyroid cancer. Briefly, CMTM6 exerts its tumor-promoting effect through the MAPK signaling pathway and could potentially be used as a valuable biomarker for thyroid cancer diagnosis and prognosis.

The transmembrane proteins (TMEM) and their role in cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition in cancer

Transmembrane proteins (TMEM) are located in the different biological membranes of the cell and have at least one passage through these cellular compartments. TMEM proteins carry out a wide variety of functions necessary to maintain cell homeostasis TMEM165 participates in glycosylation protein, TMEM88 in the development of cardiomyocytes, TMEM45A in epidermal keratinization, and TMEM74 regulating autophagy. However, for many TMEM proteins, their physiological function remains unknown. The role of these proteins is being recently investigated in cancer since transcriptomic and proteomic studies have revealed that exits differential expression of TMEM proteins in different neoplasms concerning cancer-free tissues. Among the cellular processes in which TMEM proteins have been involved in cancer are the promotion or suppression of cell proliferation, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, invasion, migration, intravasation/extravasation, metastasis, modulation of the immune response, and response to antineoplastic drugs. Inclusive data suggests that the participation of TMEM proteins in these cellular events could be carried out through involvement in different cell signaling pathways. However, the exact mechanisms not clear. This review shows a description of the involvement of TMEM proteins that promote or decrease cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in cancer cells, describes those TMEM proteins for which both a tumor suppressor and a tumor promoter role have been identified, depending on the type of cancer in which the protein is expressed. As well as some TMEM proteins involved in chemoresistance. A better characterization of these proteins is required to improve the understanding of the tumors in which their expression and function are altered; in addition to improving the understanding of the role of these proteins in cancer will show those TMEM proteins be potential candidates as biomarkers of response to chemotherapy or prognostic biomarkers or as potential therapeutic targets in cancer.

Deltex E3 ubiquitin ligase 4 promotes thyroid cancer progression through stearoyl-CoA desaturase 1

In this study, we aimed to explore the molecular role of Deltex E3 ubiquitin ligase 4 (DTX4) in thyroid cancer (TC) both in vitro and in vivo. The expression level of DTX4 in TC tissues was compared using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. We subsequently evaluated cell proliferation and migration in DTX4 knock down or DTX4 overexpression TC cell lines (TPC-1 and K1) by CCK-8, cell colony formation, and transwell assays. RNA sequencing and KEGG analysis were employed to identify potential genes that interact with DTX4. Our results showed that DTX4 was expressed at higher levels in both TC tissues and cells compared to normal controls. Knock down of DTX4 expression significantly inhibited TC cell progression in vitro. Furthermore, knockdown of endogenous DTX4 by shDTX4 markedly abrogated tumor growth, with significantly smaller tumor size and lower tumor weight in the shDTX4 group compared to the shCtrl group. Conversely, overexpression of DTX4 enhanced TC cell proliferation and migration. Through RNA sequencing, we identified 590 Differentially Expressed Genes (DEGs), with stearoyl-CoA desaturase 1 (SCD) ranking as the top gene. A positive correlation between DTX4 and SCD was observed in TC samples. Additionally, treatment with an SCD inhibitor, A939572, significantly rescued the enhanced growth effect induced by DTX4 overexpression. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that DTX4 promotes TC progression through SCD, indicating that the DTX4/SCD axis could be a promising target for TC therapy.

Pan-cancer evidence of prognosis, immune infiltration, and immunotherapy efficacy for annexin family using multi-omics data

The annexin superfamily (ANXA) is made up of 12 calcium (Ca2+) and phospholipid binding protein members that have a high structural homology and play a key function in cancer cells. However, little research has been done on the annexin family's function in pan-cancer. We examined the ANXA family's expression in various tumors through public databases using bioinformatics analysis, assessed the differences in ANXA expression between tumor and normal tissues in pan-cancer, and then investigated the relationship between ANXA expression and patient survival, prognosis, and clinicopathologic traits. Additionally, we investigated the relationships among TCGA cancers' mutations, tumor mutation burden (TMB), microsatellite instability (MSI), immunological subtypes, immune infiltration, tumor microenvironment, immune checkpoint genes, chemotherapeutics sensitivity, and ANXAs expression. cBioPortal was also used to uncover pan-cancer genomic anomalies in the ANXA family, study relationships between pan-cancer ANXA mRNA expression and copy number or somatic mutations, and assess the prognostic values of these variations. Moreover, we investigated the relationship between ANXAs expression and effectiveness of immunotherapy in multiple cohorts, including one melanoma (GSE78220), one renal cell carcinoma (GSE67501), and three bladder cancer cohorts (GSE111636, IMvigor210 and our own sequencing dataset (TRUCE-01)), and further analyzed the changes of ANXAs expression before and after treatment (tislelizumab combined with nab-paclitaxel) of bladder cancer. Then, we explored the biological function and potential signaling pathway of ANXAs using gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA), and first conducted immune infiltration analysis with ANXAs family genes expression, copy number, or somatic mutations of bladder cancer by TIMER 2.0. Most cancer types and surrounding normal tissues expressed ANXA differently. ANXA expression was linked to patient survival, prognosis, clinicopathologic features, mutations, TMB, MSI, immunological subtypes, tumor microenvironment, immune cell infiltration, and immune checkpoint gene expression in 33 TCGA cancers, with ANXA family members varied. The anticancer drug sensitivity analysis showed that ANXAs family members were significantly related to a variety of drug sensitivities. In addition, we also discovered that the expression level of ANXA1/2/3/4/5/7/9/10 was positively or negatively correlated with objective responses to anti-PD-1/PD-L1 across multiple immunotherapy cohorts. The immune infiltration analysis of bladder cancer further showed the significant relationships between ANXAs copy number variations or mutation status, and infiltration level of different immune cells. Overall, our analyses confirm the importance of ANXAs expression or genomic alterations in prognosis and immunological features of various cancer and identified ANXA-associated genes that may serve as potential therapeutic targets.