RAB26 Promotes Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma CellProliferation through Activation of β-catenin Signaling

CHEN Liujie¹, CHEN Jun^1,2, TAN Fenghua^1,2, LI Jia^1,2, DUAN Lili^1,2, HU Zheng^1,2*

( ¹Translational Medicine Institute, the First People’s Hospital of Chenzhou, Hengyang Medical School,University of South China, Chenzhou 423000, China; ²the First Clinical College of Xiangnan University,the First People’s Hospital of Chenzhou Affiliated to Xiangnan University, Chenzhou 423000, China)

Abstract:

This study explored the effect of RAB26 on nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell proliferation andits underlying mechanism. The RAB26 mRNA and protein expression levels in nasopharyngeal cancer tissues andnormal nasopharyngeal epithelial tissues were detected by real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR and immunohistochemistry experiments, and statistical analyses of RAB26 expression levels evaluated by immunohistochemistry with the clinicopathological characteristics of patients. RAB26 was overexpressed in nasopharyngeal carcinoma CNE-2 cells and knocked down in HNE1 cells, and overexpressed and knocked down cell lines were establishedrespectively. The impact of RAB26 on the proliferation of the NPC cells was detected by CCK-8 proliferation assay, cellclone formation assay and EdU proliferation assay. Western blot assay was used to detect the protein expression levels ofRAB26, β-catenin, cyclinD1, c-Myc and survivin in Wnt/β-catenin signaling and p-p38 MAPK/p38 MAPK, p-ERK/ERKin MAPK/ERK signaling in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells with overexpression and knockdown of RAB26. The CNE2 overexpressed RAB26 cell viability after X-ray irradiation with different irradiation doses (0 Gy, 2 Gy, 4 Gy, 6 Gy and8 Gy) was detected in the cell clone formation assay. The results showed that RAB26 was highly expressed in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The expression level of RAB26 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma was positively correlated withthe tumor type (r=0.294, P<0.05) and metastasis/recurrence (r=0.290, P<0.05). After overexpression of RAB26,CNE-2 nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells showed accelerated proliferation, increased expression of β-catenin, cyclinD1, c-Myc, and survivin proteins, and increased expression of p-p38 MAPK, p-ERK proteins, while the opposite wasobserved after knockdown of RAB26. Reduced radiosensitivity of nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells by overexpression of RAB26. In conclusion, RAB26 showed high expression in nasopharyngeal carcinoma and promoted the proliferation of nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells by activating the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway and the MAPK/ERKsignaling pathway.

CSTR: 32200.14.cjcb.2024.03.0009