BackgroundProstate cancer (PCa) is one of the most common cancers in male worldwide. Oxidative stress has been recognized as one of the driving signals pathologically linked to PCa progression. Nevertheless, the association of oxidative stress with PCa progression remains unclear.MethodsWestern blot, q-RT-PCR and bioinformatics analyses were used to examine PAGE4 expression. Comet assay and Annexin V/ PI dual staining assay were performed to investigate DNA damage and cell death under oxidative stress. Mouse xenograft model of PCa cells was established to verify the role of PAGE4 in vivo. Transcriptomic analysis was performed to investigate the underlying mechanism for the function of PAGE4 under oxidative stress. Western blot assay was conducted to determine the status of MAPK pathway. Immunohistochemistry was used to identify protein expression of PAGE4 in tumor tissues.ResultsIn this study, we found that PAGE4 expression was increased in PCa cells under oxidative stress condition. PAGE4 overexpression protected PCa cells from oxidative stress-inducing cell death by reducing DNA damage. PAGE4 overexpression promoted PCa cells growth in vivo. Mechanistically, PAGE4 promoted the survival of prostate cancer cells through regulating MAPK pathway which reflected in decreasing the phosphorylation of MAP2K4, JNK and c-JUN but increasing phosphorylation of ERK1/2.ConclusionOur findings indicate that PAGE4 protects PCa cells from DNA damage and apoptosis under oxidative stress by modulating MAPK signalling pathway. PAGE4 expression may serve as a prognostic biomarker for clinical applications.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13046-019-1032-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the most common type of kidney cancer. By analysing The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, 16 genes were identified to be consistently highly expressed in RCC tissues compared with the matched para-tumour tissues. Using a high-throughput cell viability screening method, it was found that downregulation of only two genes significantly inhibited the viability of 786-O cells. Among the two genes, pleckstrin homology domain containing O1 (PLEKHO1) has never been studied in RCC, to the best of our knowledge, and its expression level was shown to be associated with the prognosis of patients with RCC in TCGA dataset. The upregulation of PLEKHO1 in RCC was first confirmed in 30 paired tumour and para-tumour tissues. Then, the effect of PLEKHO1 on cell proliferation and apoptosis was assessed
in vitro
. Additionally, xenograft tumour models were established to investigate the function of PLEKHO1
in vivo
. The results showed that PLEKHO1 knockdown significantly inhibited cell viability and facilitated apoptosis
in vitro
and impaired tumour formation
in vivo
. Thus, PLEKHO1 is likely to be associated with the viability of RCC cells
in vitro
and
in vivo
. Further gene expression microarray and co-expression analyses showed that PLEKHO1 may be involved in the serine/threonine-protein kinase hippo and JNK signalling pathways. Together, the results of the present study suggest that PLEKHO1 may contribute to the development of RCC, and therefore, further study is needed to explore its potential as a therapeutic target.
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