SPTBN2 regulated by miR-424-5p promotes endometrial cancer progression via CLDN4/PI3K/AKT axis

Endometrioid Endometrial Cancer (EEC) is the main subtype of endometrial cancer. In our study, we demonstrated that SPTBN2 was significantly overexpressed in EEC tissues. Upregulated SPTBN2 expression was positively associated with poor prognosis. In addition, we testified that SPTBN2 knockdown significantly inhibited the proliferation, migration, and invasion of EEC cells. Moreover, we found SPTBN2 could interact with CLDN4 to promote endometrial cancer metastasis via PI3K/AKT pathway. Then we further demonstrated that CLDN4 is upregulated in EEC and promotes EEC metastasis. CLDN4 overexpression could partially reversed the decrease in cell migration and invasion caused by SPTBN2 downregulation. In addition, we confirmed that SPTBN2 was a target of miR-424-5p, which plays a tumor suppressor in endometrial cancer. Rescue experiments showed that inhibition of SPTBN2 could partially reverse the effect of miR-424-5p in EEC. In conclusion, we demonstrated that by acting as a significant target of miR-424-5p, SPTBN2 could interact with CLDN4 to promote endometrial cancer metastasis via PI3K/AKT pathway in EEC. Our study revealed the prognostic and metastatic effects of SPTBN2 in EEC, suggesting that SPTBN2 could serve as a prognostic biomarker and a target for metastasis therapy.