Erythropoietic protoporphyria a clinical and molecular study from Lebanon: Ferrochelatase a potential tumor suppressor gene in colon cancer

FECH Expression Correlates with the Prognosis and Tumor Immune Microenvironment in Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Background

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is, by far, the most prevalent and fatal kind of kidney cancer. Ferrochelatase (FECH) is an enzyme that performs a significant function in the onset and progression of many distinct kinds of malignant tumors. Nevertheless, its predictive usefulness in renal clear cell carcinoma (RCC) has not yet been fully investigated.

Methods

FECH expression in ccRCC and healthy adjoining tissues was primarily screened utilizing data sourced from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and subsequently validated using data from an independent cohort derived from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and the Human Protein Atlas HPA databases. The relationship among FECH expression, clinicopathological parameters, and overall survival (OS) was assessed utilizing multivariate analysis and Kaplan–Meier survival curves. Additionally, the protein networks with FECH interaction were constructed with the aid of the online Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins (STRING). Gene ontology (GO) analysis, and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) were conducted based on TCGA data, and a single-sample GSEA was utilized to explore the link between FECH expression and the infiltration status of immune cells in the tumor. The Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) and TIMER databases were utilized to investigate the relationships of FECH expression with the infiltrating immune cells and the matching gene marker sets.

Results

FECH expression was shown to be substantially lowered in ccRCC tumors as opposed to that observed in normal tissues (p < 0.05). Lower levels of FECH expression were shown to have a strong association with higher grades of cancer and more advanced TNM stages. The findings of multivariate and univariate analyses illustrated that the OS in patients with ccRCC with low FECH expression is shorter in contrast with that in the high FECH expression group (p < 0.05). It was discovered that CPOX and frataxin are key proteins that interact with FECH. ccRCC with FECH deficiency was linked to the lack of infiltrating immune cells and their respective marker sets, which included CD4+ T cells.

Conclusion

In ccRCC, decreased FECH expression was linked to disease progression, unfavorable prognosis, and impaired immune cell infiltration.

Comparative characterization of sun exposed and sun protected skin-derived mesenchymal-like stem cells in variegate porphyria and healthy individuals

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

We hypothesized that upon sun exposure, a sub-population of primary skin-derived mesenchymal-like cells is deleteriously affected and thus contribute to the chronic inflammatory state in autosomal recessive variegate porphyria patients. The aim of this study was to isolate and characterize the mesenchymal-like stem cells from different areas of the skin in a porphyria patient (sun exposed, SE, and sun protected, SP) and to compare them with cells from a healthy individual.

METHODS

The proliferation rate and the migration ability of SE and SP cells were evaluated in the presence of an antioxidant compound, N-acetylcysteine. A co-culture of SE-damaged cells with the conditioned medium from the enriched mesenchymal cell-like SP population was performed in order to regenerate the dermal injured tissue after sun exposure in patients.

RESULTS

Results showed that the percentage of CD105⁺ cells varies between 3.9% in SP and 5% in SE of the healthy individual and between 3.6% and 1.4% in SP and SE in the porphyria patient, respectively. The osteogenic differentiation potential was lower in the porphyria patient when compared to the control. Furthermore, the expression of stem cell markers was more pronounced in SE than in SP cells of both control and porphyria. The use of N-acetyl cysteine did not show any beneficial effects on porphyria SE cells. Treatment with SP-conditioned medium slightly increased the expression of stem cell markers in SE of porphyria patient.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the pool of mesenchymal stem-like SE cells is affected in variegate porphyria patient along with modification of their self-renewal and differentiation properties.

Loss of ferrochelatase is protective against colon cancer cells: ferrochelatase a possible regulator of the long noncoding RNA H19

Background

Ferrochelatase (FECH) is the last enzyme of the heme biosynthesis pathway. Deficiency in FECH was associated with many diseases, including protoporphyria. Correlation studies showed that variations of FECH expression was detected in human carcinomas and more specifically in colon cancer. Nevertheless, the potential role of FECH in colon cancer carcinogenesis in vitro was not depicted yet.

Methods

A small interfering RNA (siRNA) was used to knockdown FECH in human Caco-2 colon cancer cells. The effect of FECH down-regulation on the cellular proliferation, the migration and the expression of target genes was assessed in cancer cells and compared to human normal fibroblasts.

Results

Following FECH down-regulation, our results demonstrated that the proliferation of Caco-2 cells was not affected. Furthermore, the migration of cancer and normal cells was affected, only when an additional stress factor (H₂O₂) was applied to the medium. The expression of twist, snail, hypoxia induced factor (HIF-1α) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was reduced in Caco-2 cells. Conversely, VEGF and HIF-1α expression were upregulated by up to 2 folds in control fibroblasts. Interestingly, the pro-carcinogenic long noncoding RNA (LncRNA) H19 was 70% down-regulated in Caco-2 cells upon FECH down regulation whereas no effect was observed in normal fibroblasts.

Conclusions

In conclusion, we showed that loss of FECH is protective against colon cancer tumorigenesis in vitro and this effect could possibly be mediated through inhibition of H19.