In F-nl, incubation with the agonists PMA, LPS, or IL-1 increased COX activity and protein expression of the inducible form of COX, COX-2, and these responses were inhibited by coincubation with dexamethasone.
This is the first description of functional COX-2 expression by NSCLC cells and the definition of a pathway whereby tumor COX-2 expression and a high level of PGE2 production mediate profound alteration in cytokine balance in the lung cancer microenvironment.
Further, while COX-2 itself is known to be inducible in inflammation, COX-2 expression levels correlated well with the capabilities of these clones for not only in vitro motility and invasion but also in vivo metastasis, and COX-2 inhibitors were shown for the first time to reduce lung cancer metastasis in vivo.
Since lung cancer patients were recruited mostly among smokers, who also have been found to exhibit significantly higher infection rate of Helicobacter pylori (HP) infection than non-smokers and, as since the HP-infected subjects show enhanced plasma levels of gastrin, we decided 1) to compare the seroprevalence of HP and the expression of its cytotoxin, CagA, in lung cancer patients with those in the age- and gender-matched controls without cancer: 2) to determine the gene expression for gastrin and its receptors (CCKB-R) in lung cancer, 3) to assess the gastrin levels in plasma bronchial lavage and in tumor tissue and 4) to examine the expression of cyclooxygenase (COX)-1 and COX-2 in cancer tissue resection margin and intact bronchial mucosa.
To assess the impact of COX-2 expression in lung cancer invasiveness, NSCLC cell lines were transduced with a retroviral vector expressing the human COX-2 cDNA in the sense (COX-2-S) and antisense (COX-2-AS) orientations.
We found that carriers of the C allele of a polymorphism in the 3'-UTR of COX2 had a significantly increased risk of lung cancer, with odds ratios of 4.28 (95% CI, 2.44-7.49) for homozygotes and 2.12 (95% CI, 1.25-3.59) for heterozygotes.
These results show that the inhibition of COX-2 expression by UG transduction correlated with the suppression of NF-kappaB activity in the lung cancer cells.
Although preclinical studies have suggested that aspirin and Cox-2 inhibitors may influence the progression of lung cancer, the molecular mechanisms of these protective effects in this tumor type has not been fully elucidated.
Tubeimoside-1 inhibits proliferation and induces apoptosis by increasing the Bax to Bcl-2 ratio and decreasing COX-2 expression in lung cancer A549 cells.
TGF-β1 downregulates COX-2 expression leading to decrease of PGE2 production in human lung cancer A549 cells, which is involved in fibrotic response to TGF-β1.
Cyclooxygenase (COX) converts arachidonic acid to prostanoids, and increased expression of its isoform, COX‑2, has been observed in lung cancer tissue.