Abstract
Pancreatic cancer has poor prognosis and treatment outcomes due to its highly metastatic nature and resistance to current treatments. The RNA-binding protein (RBP) Hu-antigen R (HuR) is a central player in posttranscriptional regulation of cancer-related gene expression, and contributes to tumorigenesis, tumor growth, metastasis, and drug resistance. HuR has been suggested to regulate pancreatic cancer epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), but the mechanism was not well understood. Here, we further elucidated the role HuR plays in pancreatic cancer cell EMT, and developed a novel inhibitor specifically interrupting HuR-RNA binding. The data showed that HuR binds to the 3'-UTR of the mRNA of the transcription factor Snail, resulting in stabilization of Snail mRNA and enhanced Snail protein expression, thus promoted EMT, metastasis, and formation of stem-like cancer cells (CSC) in pancreatic cancer cells. siRNA silencing or CRISPR/Cas9 gene deletion of HuR inhibited pancreatic cancer cell EMT, migration, invasion, and inhibited CSCs. HuR knockout cells had dampened tumorigenicity in immunocompromised mice. A novel compound KH-3 interrupted HuR-RNA binding, and KH-3 inhibited pancreatic cancer cell viability, EMT, migration/invasion in vitro KH-3 showed HuR-dependent activity and inhibited HuR-positive tumor growth and metastasis in vivo.