Abstract
Early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, one of the most deadly cancers with low survival rates, is difficult, and effective biomarkers are urgently needed. Lipopolysaccharide-induced tumor necrosis factor-α factor (LITAF) has been recently proposed as a potential tumor suppressor gene in several types of cancer. Here, we analyzed the biological function of LITAF in pancreatic cancer. The LITAF gene and protein levels were decreased in pancreatic tumor tissues compared with their paired adjacent non-cancerous tissues. In addition, patients with the lower LITAF protein expression had lower disease-free survival rates. The decreased LITAF expression correlated with LITAF promoter hypermethylation in pancreatic cancer cells and tissues. Moreover, promoter demethylation dose-dependently increased the LITAF transcription. Importantly, LITAF demethylation suppressed proliferation and cell cycle progression, and enhanced apoptosis of pancreatic cancer cells. Together, our results indicate that LITAF functions as a tumor suppressor gene in pancreatic cancer cells, and might serve as a novel biomarker for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
Highlights
Our results indicate that Lipopolysaccharide-induced tumor necrosis factor-α factor (LITAF) functions as a tumor suppressor gene in pancreatic cancer cells, and might serve as a novel biomarker for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer
Recent studies have shown that LITAF is frequently down-regulated in different types of cancer [20], including acute leukemia [17], breast cancer [16, 21], lymphoma [22, 23], and prostatic cancer [24], suggesting that it may function as a tumor suppressor gene
We have investigated the LITAF function in pancreatic cancer to test whether it could serve as a potential biomarkers for early diagnosis and target therapy
Summary
Pancreatic cancer is a leading cause of cancerrelated death with an overall 5-years rate of less than 5% [1]. Some progress has been made in therapy of pancreatic cancer, there have been few improvements in overall survival (OS), largely because of the difficulty of early diagnosis [2, 3]. Even for the minority of patients undergoing surgery, the 5-years OS is only 20% after resection [6]. Detection of pancreatic cancer has been identified as the best way to improve patient survival [7,8,9,10]. There is currently no reliable and noninvasive screening test for this cancer
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