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.