Regulatory roles of HSPA6 in Actinidia chinensis Planch. root extract (acRoots)-inhibited lung cancer proliferation

Actinidia chinensis Planch. root extract (acRoots) as one of Chinese traditional medications has been applied for antitumor therapy for decades, although the exact mechanisms have not been revealed. Our present study aimed to define the inhibitory specificity and pattern of acRoots in the lung cancer cell lines by comparing 40 types of cancer cell lines, select acRoots-associated inflammation target genes from transcriptional profiles of acRoots-sensitive and less-sensitive lung cancer cell lines, and validate the correlation of acRoots-associated inflammation target genes with prognosis of patients with lung cancer. We selected acRoots-sensitive (H1299) and less-sensitive lung cancer cells (H460) and found that the sensitivity was associated with the appearance of p53. The heat shock 70 kDa protein 6 (HSPA6) was defined as a critical factor in regulating cell sensitivity probably through the interaction with intra-HSPA family members, inter-HSP family members, and other families. The degree of cell sensitivity to acRoots increased in both sensitive and less-sensitive cells after deletion of HSPA6 genes. Thus, our data indicate that HSPA6 and HSPA6-dominated molecular network can be an alternative to modify cell sensitivity to drugs.

Keywords: HSPA6; acRoots; drug sensitivity; lung cancer; p53.