RNA-Seq of ADGB overexpressing A549 cells

To study the effect of ADGB on immortalized cells, we established a stable overexpression system in A549 lung cancer cells. Transcriptomic analysis of ADGB+ lung cancer cells showed higher motility and restructuring of the extracellular matrix – both hallmarks of elevated malignancy in cancer entities. Phenotypically, ADGB+ cells had longer cellular appendages, possibly reflecting the higher migratory capacity and changes in adhesive properties. Thus, ADGB has some oncogenic potential in vitro, in line with previous studies describing an oncogenic effect of ADGB in a glioma and pancreatic cancer cell model. However, expression analysis of in vivo cancer entities showed that ADGB mRNA was simply not expressed or even actively silenced in malignancies. We conclude that despite its potential oncogenic properties in an ectopic context, expression of ADGB conveys no prognostic information to cancer patients.

为探究ADGB对永生化细胞的作用，我们在A549肺癌细胞中构建了稳定的过表达体系。对ADGB阳性肺癌细胞的转录组学分析显示，其细胞运动能力更强，细胞外基质重构更为显著——这二者均为肿瘤实体恶性程度升高的标志性特征。表型层面上，ADGB阳性细胞拥有更长的细胞附属结构，这或许反映了其更强的迁移能力与黏附特性的改变。由此可见，ADGB在体外环境中具备一定的致癌潜能，这与此前关于ADGB在神经胶质瘤与胰腺癌细胞模型中具有致癌作用的研究结果一致。然而，对体内肿瘤实体的表达分析结果显示，ADGB mRNA在恶性肿瘤中要么完全不表达，甚至会被主动沉默。综上，尽管ADGB在异位表达环境中具备潜在的致癌特性，但其表达无法为癌症患者提供预后相关信息。