Snail and serpinA1 promote tumor progression and predict prognosis in colorectal cancer

// Chae Hwa Kwon 1,* , Hye Ji Park 1,* , Jin Hwa Choi 1 , Ja Rang Lee 1 , Hye Kyung Kim 1 , Hong-jae Jo 2 , Hyun Sung Kim 2 , Nahmgun Oh 2 , Geun Am Song 3 and Do Youn Park 1 1 Department of Pathology, Pusan National University Hospital and Pusan National University School of Medicine, and BioMedical Research Institute, Pusan National University Hospital, Seo-Gu, Busan, Korea 2 Department of Surgery, Pusan National University Hospital and Pusan National University School of Medicine, and BioMedical Research Institute, Pusan National University Hospital, Seo-Gu, Busan, Korea 3 Department of Internal Medicine, Pusan National University Hospital and Pusan National University School of Medicine, and BioMedical Research Institute, Pusan National University Hospital, Seo-Gu, Busan, Korea * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Do Youn Park, email: // Keywords : colorectal cancer, snail, serpinA1, prognosis, fibronectin Received : December 16, 2014 Accepted : April 10, 2015 Published : April 29, 2015 Abstract The role of Snail and serpin peptidase inhibitor clade A member 1 (serpinA1) in tumorigenesis has been previously identified. However, the exact role and mechanism of these proteins in progression of colorectal cancer (CRC) are controversial. In this study, we investigated the role of Snail and serpinA1 in colorectal cancer (CRC) and examined the mechanisms through which these proteins mediate CRC progression. Immunohistochemical analysis of 528 samples from patients with CRC showed that elevated expression of Snail or serpinA1 was correlated with advanced stage, lymph node metastasis, and poor prognosis. Moreover, we detected a correlation between Snail and serpinA1 expression. Functional studies performed using the CRC cell lines DLD-1 and SW-480 showed that overexpression of Snail or serpinA1 significantly increased CRC cell invasion and migration. Conversely, knockdown of Snail or serpinA1 expression suppressed CRC cell invasion and migration. ChIP analysis revealed that Snail regulated serpinA1 by binding to its promoter. In addition, fibronectin mediated Snail and serpinA1 signaling was involved in CRC cell invasion and migration. Taken together, our data showed that Snail and serpinA1 promoted CRC progression through fibronectin. These findings suggested that Snail and serpinA1 were novel prognostic biomarkers and candidate therapeutic targets in CRC.