The role of RECK super expression in HPV associated tumorigenesis.

Persistent infection with high-risk Human Papillomavirus (HPV) types is the main etiologic factor for the development of cervical cancer. The HPV carcinogenic mechanisms include alterations in extracellular matrix (ECM) components, as matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) and its regulators. The Reversion-inducing Cysteine-rich protein with Kazal motifs (RECK) plays a central role on tissue remodeling, tumor angiogenesis and exert inhibitory effects on the transcription, synthesis, activation and activity of MMP-2, MMP-9 e MMP-14 (MT1-MMP). As previously published by our group, it has been observed a correlation between the HPV16 E7 oncoprotein expression, the up-regulation of MMP-9 and the down-regulation of its inhibitors, RECK and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases 2 (TIMP-2). Also, RECK expression was downregulated in cervical intraepithelial neoplasias grades 2 and 3 (CIN2/3) and invasive carcinoma samples levels when compared with clinical samples of pacients diagnosed with cervicitis. The present study aims to determine the role of RECK in HPV mediated tumorigenesis. In order to do so, we generated cervical tumors derived cell lines (SiHa, SW756 e C33A) superexpressing RECK by lentiviral transduction followed by FACS. We assessed the effects of RECK superexpression in the tumorigenic potential of SiHa, SW756 e C33A using both in vitro and in vivo protocols. Overall, RECK superexpression is associated with reduced chamber invasion and reduced anchorage independent colony formation. Moreover, nude mice injected s.c. with RECK superexpressing tumor cells presented (i) delayed tumor establishment and (ii) increased overall survival, when compared with controls. Both SiHa and SW756 superexpressing RECK presented decreased frequency of tumor and endothelial cells, whilst showed increase in inflammatory infiltrate population. This observation was followed by a decrease in potential myeloid derived suppressor cell and neutrophil populations in both SiHa RECK and SW756 RECK tumors. Additionally, we observed hipermethylation and premature and consistent downregulation of RECK mRNA expression in CIN and cervical cancer expression datasets from GEO database. We observed that reduced RECK expression was associated with CIN3+ progression and increased pelvic lymph node metastasis in cervical cancer patients. Furthermore, we found that chemo radiotherapy treatment led to increased levels of mRNA in another set of cervical cancer patients. We conclude that RECK superexpression reduces the tumorigenic potential of cervical cancer derived cell lines regardless of HPV infection status. However, we found that the effect of RECK over the intratumoral cells populations is specific to HPV infected tumor cell lines. These results points to a possible interaction between HPV associated tumor microenvironment alterations and RECK. Finally, RECK downregulation is an early event in the natural history of cervical cancer. (AU)