Relationship between the mRNA Expression Levels of Calpains 1/2 and Proteins Involved in Cytoskeleton Remodeling

Remodeling of the cytoskeleton underlies various cellular processes, including those associated with metastasis. The role of the proteases and proteins involved in cytoskeletal reorganization is being actively studied. However, there are no published data on the relationship between the mRNA expression levels of calpains 1/2 (CAPN 1/2) and the proteins associated with cytoskeleton remodeling. Therefore, the purpose of our study was to establish the relationship between the mRNA expression levels of CAPN 1/2 and the proteins involved in cytoskeletal reorganization, such as cell motility markers (SNAI1, VIM, and RND3) and actin-binding proteins (CFN1, PFN1, EZR, FSCN1, and CAP1) using the model of laryngeal/laryngopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LC). The gene expression level was determined by reverse transcriptase real-time PCR and calculated using the 2-ΔΔCt method in paired tissue samples of 44 patients with LC (T1-4N0-2M0). The patients were divided into two groups: those with low and those with high CAPN 1/2 expression levels. It was found that metastasis in LC patients was associated with decreased expression levels of VIM and CAP1, and increased levels of CAPN1. A high level of CAPN2 was accompanied by a high expression level of EZR, indicating the activation of invasion processes. The results obtained need to be confirmed in further studies using a larger sample of patients and target genes. Our study is important in elucidating the mechanisms that underlie cancer progression and metastasis, a development that could subsequently open the way to a search for new prognostic and predictive markers of laryngeal/laryngopharyngeal cancer progression.