The Correlation between YAP and RhoA Expression in Prostate and Ovarian Tumor Stroma

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Cancer associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are a mesenchymal cell type found in most solid tumors modulating cancer metastasis by building up and remodeling the extracellular matrix (ECM) structure. We aimed to evaluate the correlation between RhoA and YAP expression in the stroma cells obtained from prostate and ovarian cancer tissues. METHODS: We analyzed two microarray datasets obtained from NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus(GEO). The sample type of two datasets was RNA, which is displaying the transcriptome profiling. The tumor stroma of patients with invasive prostate cancer and high-grade serous ovarian cancer were obtained from datasets Independent t-test was used to analyze the differentially expressed YAP between normal stroma and cancer stroma. In addition, Pearson’s correlation was run to analyze the correlation between YAP and RhoA expressions. RESULTS: In comparison with normal stroma tissues, YAP1 was overexpressed in prostate and ovarian cancer stroma tissues (prostate cancer stroma, p <0.05; ovarian cancer stroma, p < 0.001). Furthermore, a positive correlation was detected between YAP and RhoA expressions in stroma of both tumor types. This correlation was positively strong in prostate cancer stroma (R=0.607) and positively weak in ovarian cancer stroma (R=0.248). CONCLUSION: We found that YAP was overexpressed in prostate and ovarian cancer stroma. Furthermore, the correlation between RhoA and YAP expression suggested that RhoA-YAP signals could physiologically be involved in tumor stroma. Thus, targeting RhoA-YAP may be an intriguing avenue for cancer therapeutics in neoplastic epithelial cells as well as tumor stroma.