Recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) is a common fertility problem that affects 1%-2% of couples all over the world. Despite exciting discoveries regarding the important roles of the decidual natural killer cell (dNK) and regulatory T cell in pregnancy, the immune heterogeneity in patients with unexplained recurrent pregnancy loss (URPL) remains elusive. Here, we profiled the transcriptomes of 13,953 CD45+ cells from three normal and three URPL deciduas. Based on our data, the cellular composition revealed three major populations of immune cells including dNK cell, T cell, and macrophage, and four minor populations including monocytes, dendritic cell (DC), mast cell, and B cell. Especially, we identified a subpopulation of CSF1+ CD59+ KIRs-expressing dNK cells in normal deciduas, while the proportion of this subpopulation was decreased in URPL deciduas. We also identified a small subpopulation of activated dDCs that were accumulated mainly in URPL deciduas. Furthermore, our data revealed that in decidua at early pregnancy, CD8+ T cells exhibited cytotoxic properties. The decidual macrophages expressed high levels of both M1 and M2 feature genes, which made them unique to the conventional M1/M2 classification. Our single-cell data revealed the immune heterogeneity in decidua and the potentially pathogenic immune variations in URPL.
BackgroundAldo-keto reductase family 1, member B10 (AKR1B10), is known to be significantly induced in the cells of various cancers such as breast cancer. However, the mechanisms of AKR1B10 promoting tumorigenesis in breast cancer remain unclear. In the present study, we demonstrated the potential role and mechanism of AKR1B10 in the invasion and migration of breast cancer cells.MethodsThe expression level of AKR1B10 in breast carcinoma, para-carcinoma and cancer tissues were detected by immunohistochemical evaluation and real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and the correlationships between AKR1B10 expression and clinicopathological features in breast cancer patients (n=131) were investigated. AKR1B10 was ectopically expressed in MCF-7 cells or silenced in BT-20 cells. The roles of AKR1B10 expression in the migration and invasion of MCF-7 cells and BT-20 cells were explored by wound healing assay, transwell migration assay and transwell matrigel invasion assay, and finally the activation level of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (EKR1/2) activation and the expression level of matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP2) and vimentin in MCF-7 and BT-20 cells were measured by western blot.ResultsWe found that AKR1B10 expression was increased in malignant tissues, which was correlated positively with tumor size, lymph node metastasis (p<0.05). MCF-7/AKR1B10 cells displayed a higher ability of migration (43.57±1.04%) compared with MCF-7/vector cells (29.12±1.34%) in wound healing assay, and the migrated cell number of MCF-7/AKR1B10 was more (418.43±9.62) than that of MCF-7/vector (222.43±17.75) in transwell migration assay without matrigel. We furtherly confirmed MCF-7/AKR1B10 cells invaded faster compared with MCF-7/vector cells by transwell matrigel invasion assay. Finally, we found AKR1B10 induced the migration and invasion of MCF-7 and BT-20 cells by activating EKR signaling, which promoted the expressions of MMP2 and vimentin. PD98059, a specific inhibitor of the activation of MEK, blocked the migration and invasion by inhibiting the expression of MMP2 and vimentin.ConclusionsAKR1B10 is overexpressed in breast cancer, and promotes the migration and invasion of MCF-7 and BT-20 cells by activating ERK signaling pathway.
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