To Study the Role of Pctk1 in the Progression of Colorectal Cancer and Molecular Mechanism

Cancer has been the leading cause of death in Taiwan for nearly the past 30 years. Colorectal cancer is the 3rd most common cancer and 3rd leading cause of cancer death in western countries. Since 2006, more than 10,000 patients have been diagnosed with colorectal cancer annually. Colorectal cancer has become the most commonly diagnosed malignancy in Taiwan and is also the 3rd leading cause of cancer death (10%). The local recurrence and distant metastasis, to locations such as liver and lung, are the major causes of colorectal cancer-related death. Tumor over-growth or radiation resistance is the reason for local recurrence, and chemo-resistance is the cause of distant metastasis. Thus, understanding the mechanism for tumor growth, metastasis and treatment resistance is an important issue. PCTK1 gene is a member of the cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) family; however, instead of playing a role in cell cycle regulation, PCTK1 gene is involved in the process of exocytosis, especially in vesicular transport. Several studies have shown that the PCTK1 was correlated to cancer progression and the therapeutic response in different cancers. However, the role and its related mechanism of PCTK1 in the progression and therapeutic response in colorectal cancer are still unclear. Our preliminary results showed that PCTK1 expression may be correlated with patients’ outcome by GEO data. In addition, we also found the level of PCTK1 is higher in CRC tissues compared with normal tissue. Those results indicate that PCTK1 may be the potential therapeutic target for CRC. Further, our in vitro study showed that silencing of PCTK1 may influence the cell growth and migratory ability in colon cancer cells. We hypothesize that PCTK1 is the key modulator in CRC progression. In the study, we plan to further dissect the role and related mechanisms of PCTK1 in CRC and how is PCTK1 involved in chemo and irradiation therapy. We believe this research can be of enormous benefit to know the role of PCTK1 in the cancer progression or monitoring the therapeutic efficacy of colon cancer.