Title: Glucose-derived AGEs enhance human gastric cancer metastasis through RAGE/ERK/Sp1/MMP2 cascade
Abstract: // Ruyuan Deng 1, * , Fengbo Mo 2, 3, * , Bowen Chang 4, * , Qi Zhang 1 , Hui Ran 1 , Shuhua Yang 2 , Zhiqiang Zhu 5 , Lei Hu 5, 6 and Qing Su 1 1 Department of Endocrinology, Xinhua Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China 2 Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China 3 Department of Surgery and Orthopaedic Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA 4 Department of General Surgery, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China 5 Department of General Surgery, Anhui Provincial Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China 6 Shanghai Key Laboratory of Gastric Neoplasms, Shanghai Institute of Digestive Surgery, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Qing Su, email: [email protected] Lei Hu, email: [email protected] Zhiqiang Zhu, email: [email protected] Keywords: AGEs; RAGE; Sp1; MMP2; metastasis Received: February 21, 2017 Accepted: July 25, 2017 Published: October 31, 2017 ABSTRACT Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) have been reported to take part in many cancer processes. Whether AGEs contribute to gastric cancer (GC) course and the underlying mechanism are still unclear. Here, glucose-derived AGEs are detected to be accumulated in tumor tissues and blood of patients with GC. As the receptor for AGEs, RAGE is highly expressed in cancer tissues, and closely associated with the depth of cancer invasion, lymph node metastasis and TNM stage. Both in vivo and in vitro treatment of AGEs accelerate the tumor invasion and metastasis, with upregualtion of RAGE, Specificity Protein 1 (Sp1), and MMP2 protein expression, as well as enhancement of MMP2 activity. Either RAGE-blocking antibody or Sp1-knockdown can partially block the AGEs-induced effects. Moreover, AGEs increased the phosphorylation of ERK, and reducing the phosphorylation level of ERK by MEK1/2 inhibitor decreased the expression of Sp1. These results indicate that accumulation of glucose-derived AGEs may act as one of potential risk factors for GC progression and promote the invasion and metastasis of gastric cancer partially through the activation of RAGE/ERK/Sp1/MMP2 pathway.