Overexpression of Selenoprotein SelK in BGC-823 Cells Inhibits Cell Adhesion and Migration

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S. B. Ben^1,2, B. Peng¹, G. C. Wang¹, C. Li³, H. F. Gu¹, H. Jiang², X. L. Meng³, B. J. Lee⁴, and C. L. Chen^3*

¹School of Life Science, Liaoning University, Shenyang 110036, China; E-mail: bensongbin007@163.com

²Departments of Pediatrics and Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, CO, USA; E-mail: hua.jiang@ucdener.edu

³School of Pharmaceutical Science, Liaoning University, Shenyang 110036, China; E-mail: chenchanglanbio@aliyun.com

⁴Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Genomics, School of Biological Sciences, Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Korea; E-mail: imbglmg@plaza.snu.ac.kr

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received March 16, 2015; Revision received June 7, 2015

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Effects of human selenoprotein SelK on the adhesion and migration ability of human gastric cancer BGC-823 cells using Matrigel adhesion and transwell migration assays, respectively, were investigated in this study. The Matrigel adhesion ability of BGC-823 cells that overexpressed SelK declined extremely significantly (p < 0.01) compared with that of the cells not expressing the protein. The migration ability of BGC-823 cells that overexpressed SelK also declined extremely significantly (p < 0.01). On the other hand, the Matrigel adhesion ability and migration ability of the cells that overexpressed C-terminally truncated SelK did not decline significantly. The Matrigel adhesion ability and migration ability of human embryonic kidney HEK-293 cells that overexpressed SelK did not show significant change (p > 0.05) with the cells that overexpressed the C-terminally truncated protein. In addition to the effect on Matrigel adhesion and migration, the overexpression of SelK also caused a loss in cell viability (as measured by 3-(4,5-dimethyl-2-thiazolyl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H tetrazolium bromide (MTT) colorimetric assay) and induced apoptosis as shown by confocal microscopy and flow cytometry. The cytosolic free Ca²⁺ level of these cells was significantly increased as detected by flow cytometry. But the overexpression of SelK in HEK-293 cells caused neither significant loss in cell viability nor apoptosis induction. Only the elevation of cytosolic free Ca²⁺ level in these cells was significant. Taken together, the results suggest that the overexpression of SelK can inhibit human cancer cell Matrigel adhesion and migration and cause both the loss in cell viability and induction of apoptosis. The release of intracellular Ca²⁺ from the endoplasmic reticulum might be a mechanism whereby the protein exerted its impact. Furthermore, only the full-length protein, but not C-terminally truncated form, was capable of producing such impact. The embryonic cells were not influenced by the elevation of free Ca²⁺ level in cytosol, probably due to their much greater tolerance to the variation.

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KEY WORDS: selenoprotein, SelK, cancer cells, adhesion, migration, calcium homeostasis

DOI: 10.1134/S0006297915100168

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