TAT peptide increases the inhibition of tongue squamous cell cancer induced by SFRP1

Tongue squamous cell carcinoma (TSCC) is the most common oral cancer, with poor outcome. Own to the lack of specific biomarkers, the development of TSCC precision treatment is still going slowly. SFRP1 is a member of the secreted frizzled-related proteins (SFRPs) family and is classified to be a tumor suppressor in multiple tumors. Our previous study discovered that SFRP1 was correlated with poor prognosis of TSCC patients and exhibited characteristics of tumor suppressor in TSCC cells. TAT peptide is efficient cell-penetrating peptide. For the sake of improving cell penetrating of SFRP1, we connected TAT to the C-terminal of SFRP1 to constructed a new delivery system SFRP1-TAT. SFRP1-TAT could inhibit the proliferation, invasion and migration of TSCC CAL27 cells. The morphology of mitochondria was changed after SFRP1-TAT treatment in CAL27 cells. One hundred and fifty-one genes were regulated by SFRP1-TAT compared with SFRP1 and TAT treatment. These genes were mainly enriched to cellular senescence, NF-kappa B signaling pathway, TNF signaling pathway, and IL-17 signaling pathway. Taken together, this study revealed enhanced anti-TSCC activity of SFRP1-TAT, highlighting its important potential as a novel agent against TSCC.