Serglycin Is Involved in TGF-β Induced Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition and Is Highly Expressed by Immune Cells in Breast Cancer Tissue

Authors

Marta Tellez-Gabriel
Xavier Tekpli
Trine M Reine
Beate Hegge
Stephanie R Nielsen
Meng Chen
Line Moi
Lisa Svartdal Normann
Lill-Tove R Busund
George A Calin
Gunhild M Mælandsmo
Maria Perander
Achilleas D Theocharis
Svein O Kolset
Erik Knutsen

Publication Date

1-1-2022

Journal

Frontiers in Oncology

Abstract

Serglycin is a proteoglycan highly expressed by immune cells, in which its functions are linked to storage, secretion, transport, and protection of chemokines, proteases, histamine, growth factors, and other bioactive molecules. In recent years, it has been demonstrated that serglycin is also expressed by several other cell types, such as endothelial cells, muscle cells, and multiple types of cancer cells. Here, we show that serglycin expression is upregulated in transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) induced epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Functional studies provide evidence that serglycin plays an important role in the regulation of the transition between the epithelial and mesenchymal phenotypes, and it is a significant EMT marker gene. We further find that serglycin is more expressed by breast cancer cell lines with a mesenchymal phenotype as well as the basal-like subtype of breast cancers. By examining immune staining and single cell sequencing data of breast cancer tissue, we show that serglycin is highly expressed by infiltrating immune cells in breast tumor tissue.

Keywords

proteoglycans (PG), serglycin (SRGN), transforming growth factor beta (TGF- β), epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), breast cancer, tumor infiltrating immune cells, Single cell sequencing

DOI

10.3389/fonc.2022.868868

PMID

35494005

PMCID

PMC9047906

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

4-14-2022

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Published Open-Access

yes