earticle

영어

While metastasis, the main cause of lung cancer-related death, has been extensively studied, the underlying molecular mechanism remains unclear. A previous clinicogenomic study revealed that expression of N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase (GalNAc-T14), is highly correlated with recurrence-free survival in those with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the underlying molecular mechanism(s) has not been determined. Here we showed that GalNAc-T14 expression was closely associated with the invasive phenotype. Microarray and biochemical analyses revealed that HOXB9 , the expression of which was regulated in a GalNAc-T14-dependent manner, played an important role in metastasis. GalNAc-T14 increased the sensitivity of the WNT response and increased the stability of the b-catenin protein, leading to induced expression of HOXB9 and acquisition of an invasive phenotype. Pharmacological inhibition of b-catenin in GalNAc-T14-expressing cancer cells suppressed HOXB9 expression and suppressed invasion. A meta-analysis of clinical genomics data revealed that expression of GalNAc-T14 or HOXB9 was strongly correlated with recurrence-free survival and hazard risk, suggesting that targeting b-catenin within the GalNAc-T14/WNT/HOXB9 axis may be a novel therapeutic approach to inhibit metastasis in NSCLC.