Bladder cancer is the most common malignant tumor of the bladder and upper urinary tract, but its clinical treatment options are limited. Aurora kinase A (AURKA) has been identified as an oncogene in cancer development and progression. However, its potential role and underlying mechanisms in bladder cancer progression remain unclear. Here, researchers evaluated the expression of Aurora kinase A (AURKA) in patient samples through gene expression profiling and found that AURKA expression levels were significantly higher in bladder cancer tissues than in normal tissues. Elevated AURKA expression in bladder cancer was closely associated with disease stage and grade. Furthermore, bladder cancer patients with elevated AURKA levels had lower overall survival rates. In vitro experiments, using gene overexpression and gene silencing methods, comprehensively validated the crucial role of AURKA in promoting bladder cancer cell proliferation. In addition, the researchers demonstrated that the AURKA inhibitor MLN8237 could inhibit bladder cancer cell growth and induce apoptosis. These findings suggest that AURKA can serve as an effective biomarker for bladder cancer detection and prognosis, as well as a potential therapeutic target.
To further verify that AURKA is a driving factor in bladder cancer cell proliferation, researchers constructed AURKA-overexpressing T24 and J82 cell lines. Western blot experiments confirmed that the expression level of AURKA in the overexpressing cells (OE) was higher than that in the untransfected control cells (WT) (Figure 1a). They assessed the differences in growth rates between control cells and AURKA-overexpressing cells at three time points during short-term culture. The results showed that the proliferation rate of AURKA-overexpressing cells was significantly increased compared to control cells (Figure 1b and c), indicating that AURKA plays an important role in promoting bladder cancer cell growth in vitro.
Figure 1. AURKA overexpression forces the proliferation of BC cells. (Guo M, et al., 2018)