PBK overexpression promotes metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma via activating ETV4-uPAR signaling pathway

Yang QX¹, Zhong S¹, He L¹, Jia XJ¹, Tang H¹, Cheng ST¹, Ren JH¹, Yu HB¹, Zhou L², Zhou HZ¹, Ren F¹, Hu ZW¹, Gong R¹, Huang AL¹, Chen J³.

Cancer Lett. 2019 Jun 28;452:90-102. doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2019.03.028. Epub 2019 Mar 23.

PMID 30914208 [ - in process]

Abstract

Invasion and metastasis are the predominant causes of lethal outcomes in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the molecular mechanism underlying the invasive or metastatic process are still insufficiently understood. Here, we first integrated several public databases and identified a novel protein kinase, PDZ-binding kinase (PBK) that was frequently upregulated and correlated with poor prognosis in patients with HCC. Gain- or loss-of-function analysis revealed that PBK promoted migration and invasion of HCC cells both in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, PBK enhanced uPAR expression by activating its promoter activity. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assay showed that ETV4 directly bound to the core region of uPAR promoter while PBK could enhance the binding of ETV4 to uPAR promoter. In orthotopic mouse model, PBK knockdown markedly inhibited the lung metastasis of HCC cells, while this effect was significantly restored by uPAR overexpression. Finally, there was a positive correlation between PBK and uPAR, ETV4 and uPAR in HCC clinical samples. Collectively, these findings revealed that PBK acted as a crucial kinase by promoting invasion and migration via the ETV4-uPAR signaling pathway, and it therefore could be a promising diagnostic biomarker and therapeutic target for HCC metastasis.