Overexpression of Snail in retinal pigment epithelial triggered epithelial-mesenchymal transition

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Hui Li¹ ; Min Li¹ ; Ding Xu ; Chun Zhao ; Guodong Liu ; Fang Wang ; ^{milwang_122@msn.com" class="auth_mail}
• 关键词：Snail ; Epithelial&ndash ; mesenchymal transition ; Retinal pigment epithelial ; Proliferative vitreoretinopathy
• 刊名：Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications
• 出版年：28 March, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：446
• 期：1
• 页码：347-351
• 全文大小：1017 K

文摘

Snail transcription factor has been implicated as an important regulator in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) during tumourigenesis and fibrogenesis. Our previous work showed that Snail transcription factor was activated in transforming growth factor 尾1 (TGF-尾1) induced EMT in retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells and may contribute to the development of retinal fibrotic disease such as proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR). However, whether Snail alone has a direct role on retinal pigment epithelial-mesenchymal transition has not been investigated. Here, we analyzed the capacity of Snail to drive EMT in human RPE cells. A vector encoding Snail gene or an empty vector were transfected into human RPE cell lines ARPE-19 respectively. Snail overexpression in ARPE-19 cells resulted in EMT, which was characterized by the expected phenotypic transition from a typical epithelial morphology to mesenchymal spindle-shaped. The expression of epithelial markers E-cadherin and Zona occludin-1 (ZO-1) were down-regulated, whereas mesenchymal markers a-smooth muscle actin (a-SMA) and fibronectin were up-regulated in Snail expression vector transfected cells. In addition, ectopic expression of Snail significantly enhanced ARPE-19 cell motility and migration. The present data suggest that overexpression of Snail in ARPE-19 cells could directly trigger EMT. These results may provide novel insight into understanding the regulator role of Snail in the development of retinal pigment epithelial-mesenchymal transition.