HCK promotes glioblastoma progression by TGFβ signaling

The hematopoietic cell kinase (HCK), a member of the Src family protein-tyrosine kinases (SFKs), is primarily expressed in cells of the myeloid and B lymphocyte lineages. Nevertheless, the roles of HCK in glioblastoma (GBM) remain to be examined. Thus, we aimed to investigate the effects of HCK on GBM development both in vitro and in vivo, as well as the underlying mechanism. The present study found that HCK was highly expressed in both tumor tissues from patients with GBM and cancer cell lines. HCK enhanced cell viability, proliferation, and migration, and induced cell apoptosis in vitro. Tumor xenografts results also demonstrated that HCK knockdown significantly inhibited tumor growth. Interestingly, gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) showed HCK was closed associated with epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) and TGFβ signaling in GBM. In addition, we also found that HCK accentuates TGFβ-induced EMT, suggesting silencing HCK inhibited EMT through the inactivation of Smad signaling pathway. In conclusion, our findings indicated that HCK is involved in GBM progression via mediating EMT process, and may be served as a promising therapeutic target for GBM.