👤 Prasong Khaenam

Cervical cancer (CC) remains a leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide and still requires effective interventions to improve patient outcomes. Angiopoietin-like 4 (ANGPTL4) is a multifaceted glycoprotein that plays crucial roles in lipid metabolism and tumor progression. ANGPTL4 exhibits both tumor-promoting and tumor-suppressing effects and has been proposed as a promising target for cancer therapy. This study investigated the role and potential of ANGPTL4 in enhancing therapeutic efficacy in CC using cell line models in vitro. Our analysis revealed a decreased expression of ANGPTL4 in CC samples from the GSE dataset and in the CC cell lines examined. Functional assays demonstrated that ANGPTL4 overexpression suppressed CC cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. Notably, overexpression of ANGPTL4 resulted in decreased cell viability and increased levels of apoptosis, cleaved caspase-3, and cleaved PARP under cisplatin treatment. Furthermore, these analyses were also conducted in ANGPTL4-knockdown cells, and results supporting the tumor-suppressive roles of ANGPTL4 were observed. Taken together, our study elucidates the critical role of ANGPTL4 in modulating progression and chemosensitivity of CC cells, suggesting ANGPTL4 as a potential target for CC treatment. Show less

Anoikis resistance is a critical feature involved in tumor progression and chemoresistance. Finding approaches to improve the effect of chemotherapy on anoikis-resistant cancer cells is therefore critically important. In this study, we examined the effects of curcumin in anoikis-resistant cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) cells, including HuCCT1 and TFK-1 that were anchorage-independently cultured (AI-cells) using poly (2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate). The AI-CCA cells were treated with curcumin alone or in combination with anti-cancer agents and their responses to each treatment were determined by cell viability assay. Gene expression in AI-cells was determined by quantitative real-time PCR. The potential involvement of angiopoietin-like 4 (ANGPTL4) in anoikis resistance was examined by gene knockdown. It was found that AI-cells tended to resist anti-cancer agents tested, especially AI-HuCCT1, which significantly resisted gemcitabine and suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA). Curcumin alone significantly inhibited viability and colony formation of AI-cells. Moreover, curcumin combination significantly enhanced the treatment effect of SAHA on AI-HuCCT1 and AI-TFK-1 cells. Gene expression analysis revealed that ANGPTL4 was markedly upregulated in AI-CCA cells and its knockdown tended to sensitize AI-cells to cell death and treatments. In addition, curcumin treatment decreased phosphorylated STAT3 and expression levels of Mcl-1, HDACs and ANGPTL4. Altogether, these findings reveal the beneficial property of curcumin to potentiate chemotherapeutic effects on anoikis-resistant CCA cells, which might suggest the potential use of curcumin for cancer treatment. Show less