KIAA1211 plays an oncogenic role in human non-small cell lung cancer

Phenotype-Genotype analysis of caucasian patients with high risk of osteoarthritis

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common cause of disability and pain around the world. Epidemiologic studies of family history have revealed evidence of genetic influence on OA. Although many efforts have been devoted to exploring genetic biomarkers, the mechanism behind this complex disease remains unclear. The identified genetic risk variants only explain a small proportion of the disease phenotype. Traditional genome-wide association study (GWAS) focuses on radiographic evidence of OA and excludes sex chromosome information in the analysis. However, gender differences in OA are multifactorial, with a higher frequency in women, indicating that the chromosome X plays an essential role in OA pathology. Furthermore, the prevalence of comorbidities among patients with OA is high, indicating multiple diseases share a similar genetic susceptibility to OA. Methods: In this study, we performed GWAS of OA and OA-associated key comorbidities on 3366 OA patient data obtained from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI). We performed Mendelian randomization to identify the possible causal relationship between OA and OA-related clinical features. Results: One significant OA-associated locus rs2305570 was identified through sex-specific genome-wide association. By calculating the LD score, we found OA is positively correlated with heart disease and stroke. A strong genetic correlation was observed between knee OA and inflammatory disease, including eczema, multiple sclerosis, and Crohn's disease. Our study also found that knee alignment is one of the major risk factors in OA development, and we surprisingly found knee pain is not a causative factor of OA, although it was the most common symptom of OA. Conclusion: We investigated several significant positive/negative genetic correlations between OA and common chronic diseases, suggesting substantial genetic overlaps between OA and these traits. The sex-specific association analysis supports the critical role of chromosome X in OA development in females.

Substrate rigidity dictates colorectal tumorigenic cell stemness and metastasis via CRAD-dependent mechanotransduction

Tumor physical microenvironment contributes greatly to the response of tumor cells. However, the mechanism of how extracellular substrate rigidity remodels colorectal cancer (CRC) cell fate and affects CRC progression remains elusive. Here, we show that F-actin regulator KIAA1211, also known as Capping protein inhibiting regulator of actin dynamics (CRAD), negatively correlates with CRC progression, stemness, and metastasis. Mechanistically, decreased CRAD in soft substrates induces Yes-associated protein (YAP) retention in the cytoplasm, restoring the repression effect on stemness markers NANOG and OCT4, thereby promoting CRC stemness and metastasis. Furthermore, CRAD deficiency promotes colorectal tumor cell softening and regulates epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) states, contributing to its metastasis potential. Clinically, CRAD expression is correlated with malignant degrees and metastasis in CRC patients. Our work uncovers a role of CRAD in anticancer and mechanical signal transduction of the extracellular matrix in CRC.

Identification and Validation of a Hypoxia-Immune-Based Prognostic mRNA Signature for Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

BACKGROUND

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a commonly encountered head and neck malignancy. Increasing evidence shows that there are abnormal immune response and chronic cell hypoxia in the development of OSCC. However, there is a lack of a reliable hypoxia-immune-based gene signature that may serve to accurately prognosticate OSCC.

METHODS

The mRNA expression data of OSCC patients were extracted from the TCGA and GEO databases. Hypoxia status was identified using the t-distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE) algorithm. Both ESTIMATE and single-sample gene-set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) were used for further evaluation of immune status. The DEGs in different hypoxia and immune status were determined, and univariate Cox regression was used to identify significantly prognostic genes. A machine learning method, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) Cox regression analysis, allowed us to construct prognostic gene signature to predict the overall survival (OS) of OSCC patients.

RESULTS

A total of 773 DEGs were identified between hypoxia high and low groups. According to immune cell infiltration, patients were divided into immune high, medium, and low groups and immune-associated DEGs were identified. A total of 193 overlapped DEGs in both immune and hypoxia status were identified. With the univariate and LASSO Cox regression model, eight signature mRNAs (FAM122C, RNF157, RANBP17, SOWAHA, KIAA1211, RIPPLY2, INSL3, and DNAH1) were selected for further calculation of their respective risk scores. The risk score showed a significant association with age and perineural and lymphovascular invasion. In the GEO validation cohort, a better OS was observed in patients from the low-risk group in comparison with those in the high-risk group. High-risk patients also demonstrated different immune infiltration characteristics from the low-risk group and the low-risk group showed potentially better immunotherapy efficacy in contrast to high-risk ones.

CONCLUSION

The hypoxia-immune-based gene signature has prognostic potential in OSCC.

Long noncoding RNA PANDAR inhibits the development of lung cancer by regulating autophagy and apoptosis pathways

Background: LncRNAs has been shown to play important roles in the progression of lung cancer, but it remains poorly understood whether lncRNAs affect the occurrence and development of lung cancer by regulating autophagy and apoptosis levels. Here, we investigated the roles of PANDAR in NSCLC. Materials and Methods: The expression profile and clinical application of PANDAR and its possible target gene BECN1 were tested in 276 cases of lung cancer tissues. Through some actual experiments, we explored functions of PANDAR about proliferation, apoptosis and autophagy of NSCLC cells in vitro. Results: PANDAR was found to downregulate both in lung cancer tissues and cell lines compared with corresponding controls (P < 0.05 for all), which was related to tumor stage (P < 0.05). Moreover, autophagy related gene BECN1 was also downregulated in lung cancer tissues comparison with normal tissues (P < 0.01), and there was a significant positive correlation between PANDAR and BECN1 levels (r = 0.789, P < 0.001). So, the high expression of PANDAR increased BECN1 expression levels and impaired the proliferation of NSCLC cell lines in vitro. Furthermore study showed PANDAR could regulate cell autophagy and apoptosis levels. Conclusion: These results indicated lncRNA PANDAR was a tumor suppressor and can inhibit NSCLC cell proliferation by activating autophagy and apoptosis pathways via upregulation of BECN1 expression.