Gene expression alterations of human liver cancer cells following borax exposure

Borax affects cellular viability by inducing ER stress in hepatocellular carcinoma cells by targeting SLC12A5

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) presents a persistent challenge to conventional therapeutic approaches. SLC12A5 is implicated in an oncogenic capacity and facilitates the progression of cancer. The objective of this investigation is to scrutinize the inhibitory effects of borax on endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-stress and apoptosis mediated by SLC12A5 in HepG2 cells. Initially, we evaluated the cytotoxic impact of borax on both HL-7702 and HepG2 cell lines. Subsequently, the effects of borax on cellular morphology and the cell cycle of these lines were examined. Following this, we explored the impact of borax treatment on the mRNA and protein expression levels of SLC12A5, C/EBP homologous protein (CHOP), glucose-regulated protein-78 (GRP78), activating transcription factor-6 (ATF6), caspase-3 (CASP3), and cytochrome c (CYC) in these cellular populations. The determined IC50 value of borax for HL-7702 cells was 40.8 mM, whereas for HepG2 cells, this value was 22.6 mM. The concentrations of IC50 (22.6 mM) and IC75 (45.7 mM) of borax in HepG2 cells did not manifest morphological aberrations in HL-7702 cells. Conversely, these concentrations in HepG2 cells induced observable morphological and nuclear abnormalities, resulting in cell cycle arrest in the G1/G0 phase. Additionally, the levels of SLC12A5, ATF6, CHOP, GRP78, CASP3, and CYC were elevated in HepG2 cells in comparison to HL-7702 cells. Moreover, SLC12A5 levels decreased following borax treatment in HepG2 cells, whereas ATF6, CHOP, GRP78, CASP3, and CYC levels exhibited a significant increase. In conclusion, our data highlight the potential therapeutic effects of borax through the regulation of ER stress in HCC by targeting SLC12A5.

Borax Pentahydrate and Disodium Pentaborate Decahydrate Are Candidates as Anti-leukemic Drug Components by Inducing Apoptosis and Changing Bax/Bcl-2 Ratio in HL-60 Cell Line

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common form of acute leukemia and has the lowest 5-year survival rates. Current treatment strategies do not meet the expectations also. Therefore, there is a need to improve therapeutic approaches still. Boron, which is a natural trace element in human diet, is gaining attention with its important roles in cellular processes for the development of new anti-cancer drug candidates. For instance, bortezomib, a dipeptidyl boronic acid, has encouraging results in the treatment of multiple myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma. However, severe toxic effects and resistance development are the limitations to its application for AML treatment. Hence, the development of alternative boron-derived anti-AML agents is unmet need. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate anti-leukemic effect of two promising boron compounds, borax pentahydrate (BP) and disodium pentaborate decahydrate (DPD), and comparison of each other in terms of the capacity to trigger apoptosis on acute promyelocytic leukemia cells (HL-60). Cell viability was assessed by MTT assay. Apoptotic effects of the boron compounds on HL-60 cells were evaluated by annexin V/propidium iodide dyes and caspase 3/7 activity assay by flow cytometry. In addition, Bax/Bcl-2 and cleaved PARP levels were detected by western blotting. Although BP showed greater apoptosis-inducing capacity, we observed that both DPD (6 mM) and BP (24 mM) treatment showed anti-leukemic effect by triggering apoptotic pathway through increasing Bax/Bcl-2 ratio for the first time. Our study suggests that BP and DPD are the promising candidates for anti-AML drug development research, which may be confirmed by further wide-spectrum studies.

Oncogene or tumor suppressor gene: An integrated pan-cancer analysis of NBPF1

Neuroblastoma breakpoint family, member 1 (NBPF1), appears to be a double-edged sword with regard to its role in carcinogenesis. On the one hand, the tumor-suppressing functions of NBPF1 have been definitively observed in neuroblastoma, prostate cancer, cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, and cervical cancer. On the other hand, there is evidence that NBPF1 regulates the colony formation, invasion, and maintenance of liver cancer cells and hence functions as an oncogene. The roles of NBPF1 are strictly dependent on the biological context and type of organization. However, a systematic pan-cancer analysis has thus far not been undertaken, and the significance of NBPF1 in the occurrence and progression of many malignancies is uncertain. In this paper, bioinformatics techniques were employed to analyze NBPF1 expression across different cancers and investigate the relationship between NBPF1 and clinical features, prognosis, genetic alteration, and tumor immune microenvironment, respectively. Our results show that NBPF1 is variably expressed in distinct tumor tissues and is also closely linked to clinical outcomes. In particular, compared to other tumor types, there was a strong negative correlation between NBPF1 expression and various components of the tumor microenvironment in adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC). We thus developed an NBPF1-derived immune risk model based on NBPF1-related immune genes; ACC patients with a high-risk score tended to have a poorer prognosis, accompanied by immune hyporesponsiveness. NBPF1 can be used as a prognostic biomarker for multiple cancers. Moreover, anti-NBPF1 immunotherapy may be suitable for treating ACC patients.

STARD4 promotes breast cancer cell malignancy

Breast cancer (BRCA) is one of the most common malignancies encountered in women worldwide. Lipid metabolism has been found to be involved in cancer progression. Steroidogenic acute regulatory protein-related lipid transfer 4 (STARD4) is an important cholesterol transporter involved in the regulatory mechanism of intracellular cholesterol homeostasis. However, to the best of our knowledge, the molecular functions of STARD4 in BRCA are unclear. Immunohistochemical staining and public dataset analysis were performed to investigate the expression levels of STARD4 in BRCA. In the present study, high expression of STARD4 was identified in BRCA samples and higher STARD4 expression was significantly associated with shorter distant metastasis-free survival time in patients with BRCA, which indicated that STARD4 may be associated with BRCA progression. Cell cytometry system Celigo^® analysis, Cell Counting K-8 assays, flow cytometry, wound healing assays and transwell assays were used to investigate the effects of STARD4 knockdown on proliferation, cell cycle, apoptosis and migration in BRCA cells. Loss-of-function assays demonstrated that STARD4 acted as an oncogene to promote proliferation and cell cycle progression, while suppressing apoptosis in BRCA cells in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, knockdown of STARD4 significantly suppressed BRCA metastasis. To assess the mechanism of action of STARD4, microarray analysis was performed following STARD4 knockdown in MDA-MB-231 cells. The data were analyzed in detail using bioinformatics, and a series of genes, including E74 like ETS transcription factor 1, cAMP responsive element binding protein 1 and p21 (RAC1) activated kinase 2, which have been previously reported to be crucial genes implicated in the malignant phenotype of cancer cells, were identified to be regulated by STARD4. Loss-of function assays demonstrated that knockdown of STARD4 suppressed BRCA proliferation and migration. These findings suggested that STARD4 had an oncogenic effect in human BRCA progression.