High mobility group Box-1 inhibits cancer cell motility and metastasis by suppressing activation of transcription factor CREB and nWASP expression.

Abstract

The ability to metastasize is a hallmark of malignant tumors, and metastasis is the principal cause of death of cancer patients. The High Mobility Group Box-1 (HMGB1) is a multifunction protein that serves as both a chromatin protein and an extracellular signaling molecule. Our current study demonstrated a novel mechanism of HMGB1 in the regulation of cancer cell actin polymerization, cell skeleton formation, cancer cell motility and metastasis. We found that knockdown of HMGB1 in human lung cancer A549 cells significantly increased cell β-actin polymerization, cell skeleton formation, cancer cell migration and invasion in vitro, as well as metastasis in vivo. And this increase could be inhibited by treatment of HMGB1 knockdown cells with recombinant human HMGB1. Further studies discovered that HMGB1 suppressed phosphorylation, nuclear translocation, and activation of CREB, by inhibiting nuclear translocation of PKA catalytic subunit. This reduces nWASP mRNA transcription and expression, further impairing cancer cell motility. Our findings on the novel mechanism underlying the HMGB1 anti-metastatic effect on cancer provides significant insight into the understanding of the nature of HMGB1 in cancer invasion and metastasis, further serving as key information for utilization of HMGB1 and its regulated downstream components as new targets for cancer therapy.

• Authors: Zhenghong Zuo, Xun Che, Yulei Wang, Bowen Li, Jingxia Li, Wei Dai, Charles P Lin, Chuanshu Huang
• Journal: Oncotarget (Oncotarget) Vol. 5 Issue 17 Pg. 7458-70 (Sep 15 2014) ISSN: 1949-2553 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 25277185 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural)

Chemical References

• CREB1 protein, human
• Cyclic AMP Response Element-Binding Protein
• HMGB1 Protein
• HMGB1 protein, human
• WAS protein, human
• Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome Protein

Topics

• Adenocarcinoma (metabolism, pathology)
• Animals
• Blotting, Western
• Cell Line, Tumor
• Cell Movement (physiology)
• Cyclic AMP Response Element-Binding Protein (biosynthesis)
• Electrophoretic Mobility Shift Assay
• Female
• Fluorescent Antibody Technique
• Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic (physiology)
• HMGB1 Protein (metabolism)
• Heterografts
• Humans
• Lung Neoplasms (metabolism, pathology)
• Mice
• Mice, Nude
• Microscopy, Confocal
• Neoplasm Invasiveness (pathology)
• Neoplasm Metastasis
• Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction
• Transfection
• Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome Protein (biosynthesis)