Autocrine action of adipokine omentin-1 in the SW480 colon cancer cell line

Yaqin Zhang; Xiaotong Zhao; Mingwei Chen

doi:10.3892/ol.2019.11131

Autocrine action of adipokine omentin-1 in the SW480 colon cancer cell line

Oncol Lett. 2020 Jan;19(1):892-898. doi: 10.3892/ol.2019.11131. Epub 2019 Nov 21.

Authors

Yaqin Zhang¹, Xiaotong Zhao¹, Mingwei Chen^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Endocrinology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui 230022, P.R. China.
² Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine Diabetes Prevention, Anhui Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hefei, Anhui 230032, P.R. China.

Abstract

Omentin-1, a 34-kDa protein, has been demonstrated to be associated with colorectal cancer (CRC). Epidemiological and clinical studies have indicated that the levels of circulating omentin-1 are significantly increased in patients with CRC, but the cause of the high omentin-1 levels and whether CRC cells express this adipokine have not been determined. In the present study, human colorectal carcinoma and para-carcinoma tissues were collected from 24 patients with CRC. In addition, SW480 and HCT116 colon cancer cells were cultured in vitro. The expression and localization of omentin-1 protein in human CRC and para-carcinoma tissues were determined by immunohistochemistry. The mRNA and protein expression levels of omentin-1 in human CRC and para-carcinoma tissues were detected by reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) and western blotting, respectively. In addition, omentin-1 mRNA expression levels in SW480 and HCT116 cell lines were detected by RT-qPCR. Since SW480 cells exhibited higher omentin-1 mRNA levels compared with those of HCT116 cells, SW480 cells were selected for further experiments. The expression of omentin-1 protein in the supernatant and lysate of SW480 cells obtained at 6, 12, 24 and 48 h was determined by ELISA. The immunohistochemistry results demonstrated that the positive expression of omentin-1 protein was mainly located in the cytoplasm of cancer cells in human CRC tissues. The mRNA and protein expression levels of omentin-1 in the CRC tissues were higher compared with those in para-carcinoma tissues. The expression levels of omentin-1 were detected in the cell lysate and supernatant of SW480 cells; the expression level of omentin-1 protein in the cell lysate was higher compared with that in the supernatant. These results indicated that SW480 cells secret and express the adipokine omentin-1 endogenously. Omentin-1 may serve its potential carcinogenetic role in CRC through endocrine, autocrine and paracrine pathways.

Keywords: adipocytokine; autocrine; colorectal cancer; omentin-1.