Pharmacological Targeting SHP-1-STAT3 Signaling Is a Promising Therapeutic Approach for the Treatment of Colorectal Cancer

STAT3 activation is associated with poor prognosis in human colorectal cancer (CRC). Our previous data demonstrated that regorafenib (Stivarga) is a pharmacological agonist of SH2 domain-containing phosphatase 1 (SHP-1) that enhances SHP-1 activity and induces apoptosis by targeting STAT3 signals in CRC. This study aimed to find a therapeutic drug that is more effective than regorafenib for CRC treatment. Here, we showed that SC-43 was more effective than regorafenib at inducing apoptosis in vitro and suppressing tumorigenesis in vivo. SC-43 significantly increased SHP-1 activity, downregulated p-STAT3(Tyr705) level, and induced apoptosis in CRC cells. An SHP-1 inhibitor or knockdown of SHP-1 by siRNA both significantly rescued the SC-43-induced apoptosis and decreased p-STAT3(Tyr705) level. Conversely, SHP-1 overexpression increased the effects of SC-43 on apoptosis and p-STAT3(Tyr705) level. These data suggest that SC-43-induced apoptosis mediated through the loss of p-STAT3(Tyr705) was dependent on SHP-1 function. Importantly, SC-43-enhanced SHP-1 activity was because of the docking potential of SC-43, which relieved the autoinhibited N-SH2 domain of SHP-1 and inhibited p-STAT3(Tyr705) signals. Importantly, we observed that a significant negative correlation existed between SHP-1 and p-STAT3(Tyr705) expression in CRC patients (P = .038). Patients with strong SHP-1 and weak p-STAT3(Tyr705) expression had significantly higher overall survival compared with patients with weak SHP-1 and strong p-STAT3(Tyr705) expression (P = .029). In conclusion, SHP-1 is suitable to be a useful prognostic marker and a pharmacological target for CRC treatment. Targeting SHP-1-STAT3 signaling by SC-43 may serve as a promising pharmacotherapy for CRC.