Human HOXB8 Lentivirus (CMV)

Previous studies have shown that homeobox 8 (HOXB8) is expressed more in colorectal cancer (CRC) tissues than in normal tissues. However, the exact role of HOXB8 in human CRC cells remains to be elucidated. In this study, researchers established cell lines with stable overexpression and knockdown of HOXB8 by constructing HOXB8 lentiviral expression vectors. The researchers found that overexpression of HOXB8 promoted the proliferation, migration, and invasion of CRC cells, while silencing of HOXB8 produced the opposite effects. HOXB8 knockdown inhibited cell proliferation and invasion in vitro and carcinogenesis and metastasis in vivo. HOXB8 also induced EMT, which is characterized by downregulation of E-cadherin and upregulation of Vimentin, N-cadherin, Twist, Zeb1, and Zeb2. In addition, HOXB8 activated STAT3, which is known to play an oncogenic role in a variety of human malignancies.

While establishing stable overexpression of of HOXB8 in DLD1 cell using HOXB8 lentiviral expression vector (Figure 1a), researchers performed MTT and colony formation assays to evaluate the effects of HOXB8 on the proliferation of CRC cells, and they also evaluated the effect of HOXB8 on the migration and invasion of CRC cells by performing wound healing and transwell assays. The results showed that overexpression of HOXB8 promoted cell proliferation (Figure 1b, c), as well as migration and invasion of CRC cells (Figure 1d, f). These results indicate that HOXB8 has the effect of promoting CRC cell proliferation and invasion in vitro.

Figure 1. HOXB8 increases the proliferation and invasion capacity of CRC cells. (Wang T, et al., 2019)