TRIP13 promotes proliferation and invasion of epithelial ovarian cancer cells through Notch signaling pathway

OBJECTIVE: Growing evidence supports the involvement of Thyroid hormone Receptor Interactor 13 (TRIP13) in the progression and metastasis of multiple cancers. However, the roles of TRIP13 in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) remains unknown. The present study aimed to investigate the expression pattern and biological function as well as the underlying molecular mechanism. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The expression patterns of genes in EOC tissues and normal ovarian tissues via microarray from GEO and TCGA datasets. The expression levels of TRIP13 in EOC cell lines were detected by Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). Next, we investigated the effect of TRIP13 on the proliferation, apoptosis. migration and invasion in the EOC cells. Western blot assay was used to explore the role of TRIP13 on the Notch signaling pathway proteins (Notch1, P21, Hes1). RESULTS: Bioinformatics analysis showed that TRIP13 was one of the most significantly upregulated in EOC. The results of RT-PCR also indicated that TRIP13 expression was markedly upregulated in EOC cell lines (SKOV-3, HEY and OVCAR-3) compared to normal ovarian cell lines. Functionally, our data revealed that silencing TRIP13 in EOC cells inhibits cell proliferation, decreases cell invasion and migration, and stimulates EOC cell apoptosis in vitro. Mechanistically, the knockdown of TRIP13 suppressed the Notch signaling pathway activation and subsequently inhibited EMT progression. CONCLUSIONS: The present study provided the first evidence that TRIP13 acted as an onco-promotive regulator in EOC development by modulating the Notch signaling pathway. Our findings enlarged our knowledge in the molecular pathology of TRIP13 tumorigenesis.