Lung cancer is a common cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Aberrant activation of WNT signaling is implicated in lung carcinogenesis. EMX2, a human homologue of the Drosophila empty spiracles gene is a homeodomain-containing transcription factor. The function of EMX2 has been linked to the WNT signaling pathway during embryonic patterning in mice. However, little is known about the role of EMX2 in human tumorigenesis. In this study, we found that EMX2 was dramatically downregulated in lung cancer tissue samples and this downregulation was associated with methylation of the EMX2 promoter. Restoration of EMX2 expression in lung cancer cells lacking endogenous EMX2 expression suppressed cell proliferation and invasive phenotypes, inhibited canonical WNT signaling, and sensitized lung cancer cells to the treatment of the chemo cytotoxic drug cisplatin. On the other hand, knockdown of EMX2 expression in lung cancer cells expressing endogenous EMX2 promoted cell proliferation, invasive phenotypes and canonical WNT signaling. Taken together, our study suggests that EMX2 may have important roles as a novel suppressor in human lung cancer.
Silencing of Wnt antagonists with aberrant activation of Wnt signaling is a common phenomenon in various human cancers. Wnt inhibitory factor-1 (WIF-1) is a secreted antagonist of Wnt signaling and acts through direct binding to Wnt in the extracellular space. In this study, we tried to illuminate the impact of WIF-1 gene expression in melanoma with WIF-1 silencing by in vitro and in vivo studies. We restored the expression of WIF-1 by nonviral gene transfer with a pcDNA3.1 vector. We demonstrated inhibition of melanoma cell growth after WIF-1 restoration in colony formation and proliferation assays in vitro. In addition, the inhibitory effect was related to downregulation of Wnt signaling, which was demonstrated at both the transcriptional and translational levels. Furthermore, by using a xenograft mouse model, we confirmed the effect of WIF-1 expression in suppressing tumor growth by inhibition of Wnt signaling in vivo. Our results suggest the potential for further application of WIF-1 gene therapy in melanoma with WIF-1 silencing.
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