Specificity protein 1-activated bone marrow stromal cell antigen 2 accelerates pancreatic cancer cell proliferation and migration

Bone marrow stromal cell antigen 2 (BST2) has been reported to act as an oncogene in the tumorigenesis of numerous types of cancer. Bioinformatics analysis has predicted the binding interaction between BST2 and specificity protein 1 (SP1) and the involvement of SP1 in pancreatic cancer. Therefore, the present study set out to verify this interaction and determine how it may affect pancreatic cancer progression. Normal human pancreatic duct epithelial cells (HPDE6-C7) and pancreatic cancer cell lines (SW1990, BxPC3, PANC1 and PSN-1) were selected for western blotting and reverse transcription-quantitative PCR detection of BST2 expression. Colony formation, Cell Counting Kit-8 and wound healing assays were performed to detect the proliferative and migratory abilities of PANC1 cells following transfection with small interfering RNA against BST2. The expression of proliferation and migration markers were assayed using western blotting. Chromatin immunoprecipitation and luciferase reporter assays were employed to verify the bioinformatics prediction of BST2-SP1 binding. PANC1 cell proliferation and migration were analyzed following BST2 knockdown and SP1 overexpression. In comparison with HPDE6-C7 cells, all four pancreatic cancer cell lines were found to exhibit increased BST2 expression levels to varying degrees, with the highest levels observed in PANC1 cells. BST2 knockdown inhibited PANC1 cell colony formation, proliferation and migration. Additionally, SP1 was shown to bind to the BST2 promoter and could promote PANC1 cell proliferation and migration when overexpressed. However, BST2 knockdown rescued SP1 overexpression-induced PANC1 cell colony formation, proliferation and migration. In conclusion, activation of BST2 by the transcription factor SP1 was shown to accelerate pancreatic cancer cell proliferation and migration, suggesting that BST2 and SP1 may be plausible therapeutic targets in targeted therapy for pancreatic cancer.