This suggests that STAT3 pathways might constitute attractive pharmaceutical targets in colon cancer patients where anti-EGF receptor drugs are ineffective.
Our data suggests that colon cancer cells are able to promote self-growth through the secretion of exosomes, especially under hypoxic conditions, which shortens mitosis duration and activates STAT3.
Our findings illustrate the biological importance of JAK3/STAT3 activation in the oncogenesis of colon cancer and provide novel evidence that JAK3 is expressed and contributes to STAT3 activation in this malignant neoplasm.
We conclude that cytokine induction of SOCS3 normally provides an intrinsic mechanism to limit injury-induced crypt hyperproliferation and inflammation-associated colon cancer by regulating both STAT3 and NF-kappaB pathways.
In addition, reactive oxygen species could induce CD80 expression via the JNK and p38 MAPK pathways, that activated STAT3 transcription factor in colon cancer epithelial cells.
Thus, the expression of HSP110 in colon cancer contributes to STAT3-dependent tumor growth and the frequent inactivating mutation of this chaperone is probably an important event underlying the improved prognosis in colon cancer displaying MSI.
We determined whether RPTS influences the interleukin-6 (IL-6)/Janus kinase (JAK)-signal transducer and activator of transcription-3 (STAT3) apoptosis molecular pathway and looked for colon cancer-related signal transduction pathways or targets inducing apoptosis.
We found that rs744166 in STAT3 was associated with colon cancer risk in two studies; however, the direction of the observation was reversed in TP53 mutant tumors possibly due to a nullification of the effect by mutant p53.
Additionally, p68 positively modulated both mRNA and protein expression levels of Stat3 target genes; promoter activity of Stat3 target gene Mcl-1 in multiple colon cancer cell lines.
In conclusion, p-STAT3 may participate in the progression of the early stage of colon cancer through the up-regulation of CD133, which in turn induces survivin expression.
While STAT3 activation is transient in physiological conditions, STAT3 becomes persistently activated in a high percentage of solid and hematopoietic malignancies (e.g., melanoma, multiple myeloma, breast, prostate, ovarian, and colon cancers), thus contributing to malignant transformation and progression.
This therapeutic approach in colon cancer could mediate 5-FU chemoresistance via modulating therapeutic targets (ie, STAT3 and Nrf2 pathways) and decreased 5-FU-related adverse effects.