Abstract

Members of the Peroxiredoxin (Prx) family are major cellular antioxidants that scavenge hydrogen peroxide and play essential roles in oxidative stress and cell signaling. 2-Cys Prxs, including Prx1, 2, 3 and 4, have been indicated in multiple oncogenic signaling pathways and thus may contribute to various processes of cancer development. The significance of 2-Cys Prxs in lung cancer development and their biological function in signal transduction have not been fully investigated. In this study we analyzed the expression of 2-Cys Prxs in lung cancer, and examined their levels of expression in a variety of cell lines established from human lung normal or cancer tissues. We found that 2-Cys Prxs, in particular, Prx1 and Prx4, were preferentially expressed in cell lines derived from human lung cancer. Through isoform specific knockdown of individual Prx, we demonstrated that Prx1 and Prx4 (but not Prx3) were required for human lung cancer A549 cells to form soft agar colony and to invade through matrigel in culture. Knockdown of Prx1 or Prx4 significantly reduced the activation of c-Jun and repressed the AP-1 mediated promoter activity. In mouse xenograft models, knockdown of Prx4 in A549 cells reduced subcutaneous tumor growth and blocked metastasis formation initiated through tail vein injection. Moreover, overexpression of Prx1 or Prx4 further enhanced the malignancy of A549 cells both in culture and in mouse xenografts in vivo. These data provide an in-depth understanding of the contribution of Prx1 and Prx4 to lung cancer development and are of importance for future development of therapeutic methods that targeting 2-Cys Prxs.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-15-2014

Notes/Citation Information

Published in American Journal of Cancer Research, v. 4, no. 5, p. 445-460.

AJCR Copyright © 2014

This article is available under the “Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License”, enabling the unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction of the published article in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.

Funding Information

This work was partially supported by the National Institutes of Health, with funding from the National Cancer Institute [grant number R00CA149144 to Q. Wei] and a pilot project [to Q. Wei] of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences COBRE grant [number 5P20GM103486-10 to L. Hersh at the University of Kentucky].

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