MRE11 is a pivotal protein for ATM activation during double-strand DNA break. ATM kinase activations may act as lung cancer biomarkers. The IL-6/STAT3 pathway plays an important role in tumor metastasis, including lung cancer. However, the mechanism between MRE11 and the IL-6/STAT3 pathway is still unclear. In this study, we discovered that MRE11 can interact with STAT3 under IL-6 treatment and regulate STAT3 Tyr705 phosphorylation. After the knockdown of MRE11 in lung cancer cells, we discovered that IL-6 or the conditional medium of THP-1 cells can induce the mRNA expression of STAT3 downstream genes, including CCL2, in the control cells, but not in MRE11-knockdown lung cancer cells. Moreover, CCL2 secretion was lower in MRE11-knockdown lung cancer cells than in control cells after treatment with the conditional medium of RAW264.7 cells. In addition, MRE11 deficiency in lung cancer cells decreases their ability to recruit RAW 264.7 cells. Furthermore, MRE11 is a potential target for lung cancer therapy.
Keywords: IL-6; MRE11; STAT3; lung cancer; macrophage.