Snail Mediates Epithelial-mesenchymal Transition And A Cancer Stem Cell-like Phenotype In Human CNE2 Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Cell

Background:Cancer stem cell(CSC)-like phenotype,which has been proved to play a critical role in invasion and metastasis of many kinds of cancers,has also been reported to be associated with Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal transition(EMT).Snail,a potent repressor of E-cadherin expression,was found to have a function to regulate cancer stem cell-like phenotype acquisition and Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal transition.Our study was done to determine the role of Snail in mediating EMT and a CSC-like phenotype acquisition in human CNE2 nasopharyngeal carcinoma(NPC)cell line.Methods:In current study,snail was overexpressed in CNE2 via lentiviral gene transfection.EMT-related biomarkers and putative CSCs markers were measured by qRT-PCR and Western blot analysis.Flow cytometry was used to evaluate the ratio of CD44~+CNE2,CD133~+CNE2 and CD44~+CD133~+CNE2 in total CNE2,and the expression of CD44 and CD133 were measured by qRT-PCR and Western blot analysis.CSC-like characteristics were analyzed with tumor-sphere self-renewal and colony-forming assays.Migration and invasion properties were determined by using Transwell and Wound healing assays.Xenograft tumor assays in vivo was done to evaluate the tumor forming ability in nude mice.Results:The increased expression of Snail induced EMT and a CSC-like phenotype in human NPC cells and enhanced cell migration and invasion ability.Snail overexpression also enhanced tumor formation in vivo.Conclusion:In human NPC cell line CNE2,overexpression of Snail mediates EMT and a CSC-like phenotype,which enhances the initiation,invasion and migration ability of cancer cell.Thus,Snail is a potential therapeutic target in NPC.