Background
Liver metastasis of CRC is still the main cause of poor prognosis in patients with CRC. Previous studies have suggested that serpin family C member 1(SERPINC1) is involved in the development of a variety of tumours, but its effect on colorectal cancer progression has been poorly elucidated.
Conclusion
Our study identified SERPINC1 as a novel liver metastasis-associated gene in CRC. Targeting SERPINC1 may be a novel therapeutic strategy for patients with liver metastases from CRC.
Methods
Based on the GEO database, this study identifies the core gene SERPINC1 associated with liver metastasis in CRC. We used transcriptomic data and immunohistochemical staining to explore the expression of SERPINC1 in normal, cancer, and liver metastases tissue from CRC patients. Clinical data obtained from our hospital were used to explore the impact of SERPINC1 on the prognosis of colon cancer patients. Mechanistically, the biological functions exerted by SERPINC1 in CRC were predicted by bioinformatics, and the
Results
In CRC liver metastatic tissues, we found significantly high expression of SERPINC1. Briefly, 212 CRC cohorts showed that SERPINC1 was significantly associated with TNM stage and plasma CA19-9 and CEA in CRC patients. Univariate and multivariate Cox demonstrated that SERPINC1 was significantly associated with 5-year survival after radical surgery for colorectal cancer (p < 0.001). Bioinformatics predicted that SERPINC1 affects metastasis of colon cancer through epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Colony formation assay and CCK-8 assay showed that SERPINC1 promotes malignant proliferation of CRC cells, trans well assay showed that SERPINC1 promotes distant migratory behaviour of CRC cells and protein blotting assay showed that SERPINC1 may promote migration by promoting the TGF-β1-mediated EMT of CRC cells. In addition, several immunotherapy cohorts also reflected that the expression of SERPINC1 reduced the sensitivity of CRC patients to immune checkpoint therapy.