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Pygopus-2 promotes invasion and metastasis of hepatic carcinoma cell by decreasing E-cadherin expression
Sheng Zhang1, Jie Li1, Pingguo Liu1
1Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Chronic Liver Disease and Hepatocellular Carcinoma (Xiamen University Affiliated ZhongShan Hospital), Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Abstract:
Pygopus-2 over-expression has been reported in several malignancies, such as ovarian, breast, lung and liver cancers. Here we demonstrated that down-regulation of Pygopus-2 by shRNA inhibited hepatic carcinoma cell invasion in vitro and metastasis in xenograft tumor models, which were promoted when Pygopus-2 was over-expressed. Pygopus-2 increased hepatic carcinoma cell invasion and metastasis, by decreasing E-cadherin. Pygopus-2 could bind to the E-cadherin promoter, increasing its methylation, and also indirectly decreased zeb2 expression. In turn these effects caused down-regulation of E-cadherin, potentiating invasion and metastasis. We suggest that targeting Pygopus-2 may potentially inhibit metastasis of hepatic carcinoma.
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