CAB39 Promotes the Proliferation of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma CNE-1 Cells via Up-Regulating p-JNK.

Aim To investigate the role of CAB39 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) development and examine its expression level in NPC tumor samples. Methods Immunohistochemistry staining of NPC tissue microarray was conducted to detect the expression of CAB39 protein in NPC tissues, and the clinical significance of CAB39 was evaluated. Lentivirus-mediated over-expression of CAB39 was designed to increase CAB39 expression in CNE-1 cells. Cell colony formation, cell cycle and CCK-8 proliferation experiments were performed to compare the proliferation ability of CNE-1 cells with or without CAB39 over-expression. Western blotting was conducted to examine downstream targets of CAB39. Results CAB39 expression was higher in tumor samples compared to normal tissue and the higher CAB39 expression was positively correlated to higher TNM stage and distant metastasis rate and non-keratinized state. Further, CAB39 over-expression dramatically increased the proliferation and colony formation of CNE-1 cells. Finally, higher p-JNK protein level was found in CAB39 over-expressing cells. Conclusion CAB39 promotes the proliferation of CNE-1 cells via up-regulating p-JNK.