Under hypoxia, dexamethasone treatment inhibited HIF-1α protein level and its downstream gene, VEGF mRNA level in the colon cancer cell lines, HCT116 and HT29.
After stratifying by tumor molecular subtype, SNP associations observed for colon cancer were: VEGFArs2010963 with CIMP+ colon tumors; FLT1 rs4771249 and rs7987649 with TP53; FLT1 rs3751397, rs7337610, rs7987649, and rs9513008 and KDR rs10020464, rs11941492, and rs12498529 with MSI+ and CIMP+/KRAS2-mutated tumors.
Of the gene-environment combined effects, the interaction of VEGF 1451C > T and MetS contributed to increased rectal cancer risk (AOR = 3.15; 95% CI = 1.74 - 5.70; p < .001) whereas the combination of VEGF 1725G > A and MetS was involved with elevated colon cancer risk (AOR = 2.68; 95% CI = 1.30 - 1.55; p =0.008).
Bevacizumab, an antibody neutralizing Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF), is licensed for the management of patients with advanced colon cancer.
Therefore, a major implication of our studies is that restoration of miR-192 expression or antagonism of its target genes (Bcl-2, Zeb2 or VEGFA) may have considerable therapeutic potential for anti-metastatic therapy in patients with colon cancer.
IHC studies performed on human colon adenocarcinoma specimens showed that TGF-beta signaling is inversely correlated with VEGFA expression, indicating that TGF-beta-mediated suppression of VEGFA expression exists in colon cancer patients.
In conclusion, SOX9, β-catenin and PPARγ expression levels are deregulated in the CRC tissue, and in colon cancer cell lines ligand-dependent PPARγ activation unevenly influences SOX9 and β-catenin expression and subcellular localization, suggesting a variable mechanistic role in colon carcinogenesis.
To investigate the relationship between PSF and PPARγ in colon cancer, we evaluated the effects of PSF expression in DLD-1 and HT-29 colon cancer cell lines, which express low and high levels of PPARγ, respectively PSF affected the ability of PPARγ to bind, and expression of PSF siRNA significantly suppressed the proliferation of colon cancer cells.
The secretion of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was inhibited by single PTX treatment of colon cancer and in continuous treatment of glioblastoma cell lines.
Another monoclonal antibody useful in the treatment of colon cancer is bevacizumab, a monoclonal antibody to vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF); however, in some cases bevacizumab may cause deep vein thrombosis (DVP).
In our study we evaluated by qRT-PCR the level of expression of 3 growth factors involved in angiogenesis: platelet derived growth factor-B (PDGFb), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) in patients with different stages of colon cancer.
These findings demonstrate that TTP acts as a negative regulator of VEGF gene expression in colon cancer cells, suggesting that it can be used as novel therapeutic agent to treat colon cancer.