Colon cancer is the third most important cancer type, leading to a remarkable number of deaths, indicating the necessity of new biomarkers and therapeutic targets for colon cancer patients. Several transmembrane proteins (TMEMs) are associated with tumor progression and cancer malignancy. However, the clinical significance and biological roles of TMEM211 in cancer, especially in colon cancer, are still unknown. In this study, we found that TMEM211 was highly expressed in tumor tissues and the increased TMEM211 was associated with poor prognosis in colon cancer patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. We also showed that abilities regarding migration and invasion were reduced in TMEM211-silenced colon cancer cells (HCT116 and DLD-1). Moreover, TMEM211-silenced colon cancer cells showed decreased levels of Twist1, N-cadherin, Snail and Slug but increased levels of E-cadherin. Levels of phosphorylated ERK, AKT and RelA (NF-κB p65) were also decreased in TMEM211-silenced colon cancer cells. Our findings indicate that TMEM211 regulates epithelial-mesenchymal transition for metastasis through coactivating the ERK, AKT and NF-κB signaling pathways, which might provide a potential prognostic biomarker or therapeutic target for colon cancer patients in the future.
Keywords: colon cancer; epithelial–mesenchymal transition; prognosis; signaling pathways; transmembrane protein 211.