Purpose: The proinflammatory cytokine interleukin-32 (IL-32) is a novel tumor marker highly expressed in various human carcinomas, including gastric cancer. However, its effects on prognosis of patients with gastric cancer and cancer metastasis are virtually unknown at present. The main aim of this study was to explore the clinical significance of IL-32 in gastric cancer and further elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying IL-32-mediated migration and invasion.Experimental Design: Gastric cancer cells with ectopic expression or silencing of IL-32 were examined to identify downstream molecules and establish their effects on cell motility, invasion, and lung metastasis in vivo.Results: IL-32 was significantly upregulated in gastric cancer and positively correlated with aggressiveness of cancer and poor prognosis. Ectopic expression of IL-32 induced elongated morphology and increased cell migration and invasion via induction of IL-8, VEGF, matrix metalloproteinase 2 (MMP2), and MMP9 expression via phosphor-AKT/phospho-glycogen synthase kinase 3b/active b-catenin as well as hypoxiainducible factor 1a (HIF-1a) signaling pathways. Conversely, depletion of IL-32 in gastric cancer cells reversed these effects and decreased lung colonization in vivo. Examination of gene expression datasets in oncomine and staining of gastric cancer specimens demonstrated the clinical significance of IL-32 and its downstream molecules by providing information on their coexpression patterns.Conclusions: IL-32 contributes to gastric cancer progression by increasing the metastatic potential resulting from AKT, b-catenin, and HIF-1a activation. Our results clearly suggest that IL-32 is an important mediator for gastric cancer metastasis and independent prognostic predictor of gastric cancer. Clin Cancer Res; 20(9); 2276-88. Ó2014 AACR.

These results provide strong evidence that CXCL1 plays an important role in gastric cancer progression and migration and suggest that CXCL1 is a promising marker for the detection and prognosis of gastric cancer.

Thyroid hormone (T 3 ) mediates cellular growth, development, and differentiation by binding to the nuclear thyroid hormone receptor (TR). Recent studies suggest that long-term hypothyroidism is associated with human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) independent from other major HCC risk factors. Dickkopf (DKK) 4, a secreted protein, antagonizes the Wnt signal pathway. In this study, we demonstrate that T 3 may play a suppressor role by inducing DKK4 expression in HCC cells at both the messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein levels. DKK4 was down-regulated in 67.5% of HCC cancerous tissues. The decrease in DKK4 levels was accompanied by a concomitant decrease in TR protein levels in the matched cancerous tissues in 31% of tissues compared by immunoblotting with the adjacent noncancerous tissues. Further, TR and DKK4 expression levels were positively correlated in both normal and cancerous specimens by tissue array analysis. In function assays, stable DKK4 transfected into J7 or HepG2 cells decreased cell invasion in vitro. Conversely, knocking down DKK4 restores cell invasiveness. DKK4-expressing J7 clones showed increased degradation of b-catenin, but down-regulation of CD44, cyclin D1, and c-Jun. To investigate the effect of DKK4 and TR on tumor growth in vivo, we established a xenograft of J7 cells in nude mice. J7-DKK4 and J7-TRa1 overexpressing mice, which displayed growth arrest, lower lung colony formation index, and smaller tumor size than in control mice, supporting an inhibitory role of DKK4 in tumor progression. Conclusion: Taken together, these data suggest that the TR/DKK4/Wnt/b-catenin cascade influences the proliferation and migration of hepatoma cells during the metastasis process and support a tumor suppressor role of the TR. (HEPATOLOGY 2012;55:910-920) T hyroid hormone, 3,3 0 -5-triiodo-l-thyronine (T 3 ), is a potent mediator of many physiological processes including embryonic development, cell differentiation, metabolism, and the regulation of cell proliferation.1,2 The actions of T 3 are mediated by nuclear thyroid hormone receptors (TRs). TRs are ligand-dependent transcription factors that comprise modular functional domains that mediate hormone binding (ligands), DNA binding, receptor homo-and heterodimerization, and interaction with other transcription factors and cofactors.3 TRs are derived from two genes, TRa and TRb, located on human chromosomes 17 and 3, respectively. Transcripts of each of these genes undergo alternative promoter choice to generate TRa1 and TRa2 as well as TRb1 and TRb2 receptor isoforms. 2-4Using a complementary DNA (cDNA) microarray technique, we previously identified 148 genes that are positively regulated by T 3 in a TRa1-overexpressing