Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 7, 2015; 21(21): 6550-6560
Published online Jun 7, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i21.6550
Alternative splicing of VEGFA, APP and NUMB genes in colorectal cancer
Yi-Jun Zhao, Hua-Zhong Han, Yong Liang, Chen-Zhang Shi, Qing-Chao Zhu, Jun Yang
Yi-Jun Zhao, Hua-Zhong Han, Chen-Zhang Shi, Qing-Chao Zhu, Jun Yang, Department of Surgery, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Affiliated Sixth People’s Hospital, Shanghai 200233, China
Yong Liang, Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical College, Xuzhou 221006, Jiangsu Province, China
Author contributions: Zhao YJ and Han HZ contributed equally to this work; Zhao YJ, Han HZ, Liang Y and Yang J conceived of and designed the study, analyzed the data, and drafted and revised the article; Zhao YJ, Han HZ, Shi CZ and Zhu QC performed the experiments; Zhao YJ, Zhu QC, and Yang J wrote the paper; all authors have read and approved the final version to be published.
Ethics approval: The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Sixth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest related to this work.
Data sharing: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at yangjun_sh@163.com. Participants gave informed consent for data sharing.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Jun Yang, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Surgery, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Affiliated Sixth People’s Hospital, No. 600 Yishan Road, Shanghai 200233, China. yangjun_sh@163.com
Telephone: +86-21-64369181 Fax: +86-21-64368920
Received: November 23, 2014
Peer-review started: November 24, 2014
First decision: January 8, 2015
Revised: February 10, 2015
Accepted: March 12, 2015
Article in press: March 12, 2015
Published online: June 7, 2015
Abstract

AIM: To investigate alternative splicing in vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA), amyloid beta precursor protein (APP), and Numb homolog (NUMB) in colorectal cancer (CRC).

METHODS: Real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism analyses were performed to detect the expression of VEGFA, APP, and NUMB mRNA in 20 CRC tissues and matched adjacent normal tissues, as well as their alternative splicing variants.

RESULTS: qRT-PCR analysis revealed that the expression of APP, NUMB, and VEGFA165b mRNA were significantly downregulated, while VEGFA mRNA was upregulated, in CRC tissues (all P < 0.05). PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis revealed that the expression of VEGFA165a/b in CRC tissues was significantly higher than in adjacent normal tissues (P < 0.05). Compared with adjacent normal tissues, the expression of NUMB-PRRS in CRC tissues was significantly decreased (P < 0.05), and the expression of NUMB-PRRL was increased (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION: Alternative splicing of VEGFA, APP, and NUMB may regulate the development of CRC, and represent new targets for its diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment.

Keywords: Alternative splicing, Amyloid beta precursor protein, Colorectal cancer, Numb homolog, Vascular endothelial growth factor A

Core tip: This study was undertaken to investigate the effect of alternative splicing of vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA), amyloid beta precursor protein (APP), and Numb homolog (NUMB) genes in colorectal cancer (CRC). We demonstrated that these genes and their alternative splice variants were different in CRC tissues and matched adjacent normal tissues using quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR and PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism analyses. We conclude that alternative splicing of VEGFA, APP, and NUMB may be associated with the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of CRC. This study may help in understanding the relationship between alternative splicing and CRC.