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Research Paper|Volume 13, Issue 4|pp 5845—5857

Down-regulation of estrogen-related receptor alpha (ERRα) inhibits gastric cancer cell migration and invasion in vitro and in vivo

Yuejiao Zhong1, Kang He1, Lin Shi1,6, Lingxiang Chen1, Bin Zhou2, Rong Ma3, Hui Yu4, Jia Zhang5, You Shuai1, Yan Fei1, Jianwei Lu1,6
  • 1Department of Medical Oncology, Jiangsu Cancer Hospital and Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research and The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210009, Jiangsu Province, China
  • 2Department of General Surgery, Jiangsu Cancer Hospital and Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research and The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210009, Jiangsu Province, China
  • 3Department of Central Lab, Jiangsu Cancer Hospital and Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research and The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210009, Jiangsu Province, China
  • 4Department of Invasive Technology, Jiangsu Cancer Hospital and Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research and The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210009, Jiangsu Province, China
  • 5Department of Imaging, Jiangsu Cancer Hospital and Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research and The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210009, Jiangsu Province, China
  • 6Department of Oncology, The Affiliated Suqian First People's Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Suqian 223800, Jiangsu Province, China
* Equal contribution
Received: April 28, 2020Accepted: July 6, 2020Published: February 11, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202508

Copyright: © 2021 Zhong et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the correlation between estrogen-related receptor a (ERRα) expression level and gastric cancer (GC).

Methods: We collected GC and adjacent normal tissues from 50 patients. The parameters of the patients were summarized, and correlation with the expression level of ERRα was calculated. Downregulated ERRα using lentivirus was designed and transfected to SGC-7901 and MGC-803 cells. Cell migration, invasion and wound assays were conducted to determine the correlation between ERRα and capacity for cell migration and invasion. The expression level of the genes involved in epithelial–mesenchymal transition, including E-cadherin, γ-catenin, N-cadherin and vimentin, was determined via real-time or quantitative polymerase chain reaction(qPCR) and Western blot analysis.

Results: The expression of ERRα tends to be higher in GC tissues than in adjacent normal tissues. Analyses ofthe expression level of ERRα and patient parameters show that the ERRα level is significantly correlated with TNM staging and patient survival (P<0.05). The downregulation of ERRα can inhibit cell invasion and migration, which was proven by Transwell and cell wound assays. The levels of E-cadherin and γ-catenin increased by conducting qPCR and Western blot analysis. Meanwhile, the levels of N-cadherin and vimentin decreased when ERRα expression was reduced.

Conclusion: ERRα is highly expressed in GC tissues and can promote the migration and invasion of cancer cells. It can be a potential marker for GC diagnosis.