Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Oct 15, 2022; 14(10): 1968-1980
Published online Oct 15, 2022. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v14.i10.1968
Interleukin-34 promotes the proliferation and epithelial-mesenchymal transition of gastric cancer cells
Chuan-Hong Li, Zhang-Ming Chen, Pei-Feng Chen, Lei Meng, Wan-Nian Sui, Song-Cheng Ying, A-Man Xu, Wen-Xiu Han
Chuan-Hong Li, Zhang-Ming Chen, Pei-Feng Chen, Lei Meng, Wan-Nian Sui, A-Man Xu, Wen-Xiu Han, Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230022, Anhui Province, China
Song-Cheng Ying, Department of Immunology, College of Basic Medicine, Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230022, Anhui Province, China
Author contributions: Li CH, Chen ZM, and Chen PF collected the data and wrote the manuscript; Sui WN participated in data analysis; Ying SC participated in discussion and language editing; Xu AM provided funding support; Han WX reviewed the manuscript and provided funding support; All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
Supported by the Natural Science Project of Anhui Province, No. KJ2021ZD0022; and the Key Research and Development Program of Anhui Province, No. 202104J07020029.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University (Quick PJ 2019-09-01).
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All procedures involving animals were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the Anhui Medical University (SC20200513).
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest in this study.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at email address hwxhbh@126.com. Participants gave informed consent for data sharing.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE Guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE Guidelines.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Wen-Xiu Han, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, No. 218 Jixi Avenue, Shushan District, Hefei 230022, Anhui Province, China. hwxhbh@126.com
Received: May 30, 2022
Peer-review started: May 30, 2022
First decision: June 21, 2022
Revised: July 4, 2022
Accepted: August 21, 2022
Article in press: August 21, 2022
Published online: October 15, 2022
Processing time: 136 Days and 22 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Interleukin (IL)-34 is an inflammatory cytokine that is also involved in the development of several tumors. However, the role of IL-34 in the proliferation and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of gastric cancer (GC) remains to be investigated.

Research motivation

To investigate the effect of IL-34 on the proliferation of GC cells and to find new therapeutic targets for the treatment of GC.

Research objectives

To clarify the effect of IL-34 on the prognosis of GC patients and the effect of IL-34 on the proliferation and EMT of GC cells.

Research methods

The expression of IL-34 protein in GC tissues and cells was detected using immunohistochemical staining and Western blotting. In vitro, stable IL-34 knockdown and overexpressed GC cell lines were cultured, and the proliferation, clone formation, migration and invasion ability of GC cells were examined using cholecystokinin-8 assay, clone formation assay, cell scratch assay and transwell assay, respectively. In vivo, the effect of IL-34 on GC transplantation tumor growth was assessed using a subcutaneous tumor transplantation assay in nude mice. Western blotting was used to detect the association of IL-34 protein with EMT-related protein expression levels.

Research results

IL-34 expression is elevated in GC cells and tissues, and IL-34 expression levels correlated with tumor size, T stage, N stage, tumor, node and metastasis stage, and degree of differentiation. In vitro, endogenous upregulation of IL-34 promoted GC cell proliferation and EMT. In vivo, IL-34 overexpression promoted subcutaneous graft tumor growth in nude mice.

Research conclusions

IL-34 expression is increased in GC tissues and cell lines. IL-34 promotes the proliferation and epithelial-mesenchymal transition of GC cells.

Research perspectives

IL-34 may represent a new strategy for the diagnosis and targeted treatment of GC. Further search for potential cancer-promoting mechanisms of IL-34 is needed in the future.