Silencing of BACH1 inhibits invasion and migration of prostate cancer cells by altering metastasis-related gene expression

Background: Cancer lethality is mainly caused by metastasis. Therefore, understanding the nature of the genes involved in this process has become a priority. BACH1, a basic leucine zipper transcription factor, has been shown to transcriptionally regulate expression of a range of genes that are associated with breast cancer metastasis. However, the exact role and the underlying molecular mechanism of BACH1 in prostate cancer remain unclear. This study aims to explore the expression of BACH1 in prostate cancer tissues and the effect of BACH1 suppression on prostate cancer cell behavior. Materials and methods: In this study, we used quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) to measure BACH1 expression in prostate adenocarcinoma tissues and two metastasis-derived prostate cancer cell lines, DU145 and LNCaP. We also used immunohistochemical (IHC) staining to measure BACH1 protein expression in prostate adenocarcinoma and matched normal tissue samples. In the following BACH1 expression was silenced in DU145 cells using siRNA as well. Knockdown was confirmed by qRT-PCR and Western blotting. The cytotoxic effects of BACH1-siRNA on DU145 cells were determined using an MTT assay. The migration and invasive capacity of DU145 cells were examined by scratch wound healing assay and matrigel invasion assay, respectively. We also used qRT-PCR to study the effect of BACH1 silencing on the expression levels of metastasis-related genes. Results:We find that the expression of BACH1 mRNA and protein in prostate cancer tissues is significantly higher than in matched normal prostate tissues (p