Abstract 361: Pleckstrin-2 as a prognostic factor and mediator of gastric cancer progression

Abstract

Abstract Background: Pleckstrin-2 (PLEK2) is a crucial mediator of cytoskeletal reorganization. However, the potential roles and clinical significance of PLEK2 in gastric cancer are still unknown. Methods: We aimed to illustrate the function of PLEK2 in gastric cancer. Pearson's correlation analysis was utilized to test the clinical impacts of the levels of PLEK2 in gastric cancer patients. Loss-of-function approaches were used to estimate the potential roles played by PLEK2 in modulating gastric cancer proliferation, self-renewal, and tumourigenicity. Immunoblotting and bioinformatics approaches were used to monitor the effect of PLEK2 on epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) signalling pathways. Results: In gastric cancer tissue samples examined by western blot and real-time PCR, there was an increased level of PLEK2 compared with that in matched non-tumour samples. Kaplan-Meier plotter analysis revealed that gastric cancer patients with higher PLEK2 levels had substantially poorer overall survival (p=0.0028) compared with gastric cancer patients with lower PLEK2 levels. The upregulation or downregulation of PLEK2 in gastric cancer cell lines effectively enhanced or inhibited cell proliferation and pro-invasive behaviour, respectively. Additionally, we also found that PLEK2 enhanced EMT concomitantly with a reduction in E-cadherin and an elevation in Vimentin. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrated that PLEK2 plays a potential role in gastric cancer and may act as a prognostic factor for gastric cancer. Citation Format: Bo Sun, Jian-Bin Xiang, Yi Xuan, Zong-You Chen, Xiao-Dong Gu, Da-Zhi Xu. Pleckstrin-2 as a prognostic factor and mediator of gastric cancer progression [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research 2020; 2020 Apr 27-28 and Jun 22-24. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(16 Suppl):Abstract nr 361.