Decorin, a member of the
small leucine-rich proteoglycans family, exists and plays multifunctional roles in stromal and epithelial cells. Emerging evidences showed that
decorin is dysregulated expression in a wide variety of human
tumors and affects a broad biology process of
cancer cells, including growth,
metastasis, and angiogenesis. Recent studies demonstrated that
decorin could affect A549 proliferation though decreasing TGF-β1, cycling D1 expression and increasing P53 and P21 expression. However, limited data are available on the effect of
decorin on
metastasis of
non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines and how
decorin impacts
metastasis is still unknown. In this study, we identified
decorin mRNA expression through Oncomine database and verified the expression of
decorin mRNA and
protein in 50 patients who underwent primary surgical resection of a NSCLC in the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Jinling Hospital, Nanjing University School of Medicine, China, between September 2013 and March 2014 by quantitative
reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and Western blot. Also, the correlationship between
decorin and the NSCLC patients' clinical characteristics or survival ( www.kmplot.com ) was analyzed. Via ectopic expression analyses and Western blot, the roles of
decorin in proliferation,
metastasis, and the underline mechanism for
decorin expression were further explored. We found that
decorin was downregulated in NSCLC tissues compared with the adjacent normal lung tissues or normal tissues. Additionally, the expression of
decorin was correlated with
tumor size,
lymph node metastasis,
tumor stage, and prognosis. We also showed that overexpression of
decorin could inhibit NSCLC cell lines proliferation and
metastasis. Through Western blot analysis, we identified that
E-cadherin and
vascular endothelial growth factor (
VEGF) are two key factors responsible for the growth arrest and
metastasis inhibition induced by
decorin in NSCLC. Our results indicated that
decorin plays crucial roles in NSCLC against
carcinogenesis and progression.
Decorin might be a predictive factor and an attractive therapeutic target for NSCLC patients.