Upregulation of secreted phosphoprotein 1 affects malignant progression, prognosis, and resistance to cetuximab via the KRAS/MEK pathway in head and neck cancer

• DOI: 10.1002/mc.23245
• Publication Date: 2020-08-28T13:55:10Z
• Authors: Kai Liu; Huiying Hu; Huanyu Jiang; Chenglei Liu; Haidong Zhang; Shanchun Gong; Dongmin Wei; Zhenkun Yu
• Keywords: Tumor progression

Abstract Acquired resistance is a barrier to cetuximab efficacy in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Secreted phosphoprotein 1 (SPP1) involved various biological processes, including immune responses, cancer progression, prognosis many cancers, while little known HNSCC. Bioinformatics methods were used identify candidate genes further vivo vitro experiments performed examine validate the function of SPP1. We found that SPP1 was upregulated has been have an oncogenic role confirmed overexpression affected proliferation, migration, invasion, survival, inhibited apoptosis, whereas silencing yielded opposite results those overexpression. In addition, activation KRAS/MEK pathway contributed SPP1‐induced malignant progression HNSCC cetuximab. Furthermore, knockdown or MEK inhibitor overcame this cetuximab‐resistance pattern. Taken together, our findings for first time tumor promotion, prognostic prediction, potential therapeutic targeting, as well