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RRAD inhibits aerobic glycolysis, invasion, and migration and is associated with poor prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma

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Tumor Biology

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most prevalent and lethal cancer worldwide. However, the mechanism underlying the HCC development remains unclear. Ras-related associated with diabetes (RRAD) is a small Ras-related GTPase which has been implicated in metabolic disease and several types of cancer, yet its functions in HCC remain unknown. A tissue microarray constructed by 90 paired HCC tissues and adjacent non-cancerous liver tissues was used to examine the protein levels of RRAD, and the messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of RRAD was also detected in a subset of this cohort. The prognostic significance of RRAD was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox regression. The glucose utilization assay and lactate production assay were performed to measure the role of RRAD in HCC glycolysis. The effect of RRAD in HCC invasion and metastasis was analyzed by transwell assays. Our results suggested that the expression of RRAD was downregulated in HCC tissues compared to the adjacent non-tumorous liver tissues both in mRNA and protein levels and lower RRAD expression served as an independent prognostic indicator for the survival of HCC patients. Moreover, RRAD inhibited hepatoma cell aerobic glycolysis by negatively regulating the expression of glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1) and hexokinase II (HK-II). In addition, RRAD inhibition dramatically increased hepatoma cell invasion and metastasis. In conclusion, our study revealed that RRAD expression was decreased in HCC tumor tissues and predicted poor clinical outcome for HCC patients and played an important role in regulating aerobic glycolysis and cell invasion and metastasis and may represent potential targets for improving the treatment of HCC.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Xia Li and Wei Liu who provided technical support. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 30872480)

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, 127 West Changle Street, Xi’an, Shaan xi, 710032, China

      Runze Shang, Jianlin Wang, Wei Sun, Bin Dai, Bai Ruan, Zhuochao Zhang, Xisheng Yang, Yuan Gao, Shibin Qu, Xing Lv, Kaishan Tao, Lin Wang, Kefeng Dou & Desheng Wang

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    1. Runze Shang
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    2. Jianlin Wang
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    Correspondence to Kefeng Dou or Desheng Wang.

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    Runze Shang, Jianlin Wang, Wei Sun and Bin Dai contributed equally to this work.

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    Shang, R., Wang, J., Sun, W. et al. RRAD inhibits aerobic glycolysis, invasion, and migration and is associated with poor prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma. Tumor Biol. 37, 5097–5105 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13277-015-4329-7

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13277-015-4329-7

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