Purpose: Coronin3 is a cytoskeletal protein that has been implicated in metastasis in many cancer types. Here, we demonstrate its effect in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and propose a new probable mechanism of CORO1C-mediated cell migration and invasion by regulation of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and CDH11.
Patients and methods: First, we measured the differential expression of CORO1C between NPC and non-NPC cells in both cell lines and clinical specimens, using public datasets. Then, we investigated its relationship with clinicopathological factors and its potential as a biomarker to predict the prognosis of NPC patients. We also explored its influence on the cell behaviors of migration and invasion by upregulating and downregulating the expression of CORO1C and attempted to determine the underlying mechanism.
Results: The results verified our original hypothesis. CORO1C was overexpressed in both NPC cell lines and clinical specimens, in both public datasets and our own samples. NPC patients with lower CORO1C expression levels in primary cancer tissues had longer OS (hazard ratio [HR] 1.814, 95% CI 0.831–3.960, p=0.0341) and PFS (HR 1.798, 95% CI 0.907–3.564, p=0.0155), indicating that it could be used as a prognostic biomarker. It was also confirmed that CORO1C enhanced cells’ migration and invasion abilities, by inducing morphological and marker changes typical of EMT. Finally, we found that expression was correlated with and regulated CDH11 expression in NPC cell lines.
Conclusion: Our study provided evidence for the contribution of CORO1C to NPC metastasis, and indicated that it could be used as a new therapeutic target and prognostic biomarker.
Keywords: nasopharyngeal carcinoma, metastasis, GEO, coronin3, CDH11, epithelial to mesenchymal transition