Correlation of the biological clock gene PER1 with ferroptosis in nasopharyngeal carcinoma

ABSTRACT

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) still recurs or leads to distant metastasis in 10%–30% patients after standardized treatment, which increases the serious toxic side effects and treatment difficulty with recourse therapy. In this study, we found that the biological clock gene Period1(PER1) was expressed at low levels in human nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell (CNE2)and NPC tissues, and overexpression of PER1 decreased the invasion and migration ability of NPC cells and increased the expression of lipid peroxidation (LPO), Fe2+ and glutathione (GSH). The expression of glutathione peroxidase (GPX4) and solute carrier family 7 member 11 (SLC7A11) was found to be decreased in CNE2 cells and tissues of NPC. Our results suggest that PER1 may induce ferroptosis in CNE2 by inhibiting the expression of GPX4 and SLC7A11, thereby causing LPO and Fe2+ accumulation in CNE2 and finally inducing ferroptosis in CNE2. This novel mechanism may provide a new direction for the treatment of NPC.

KEYWORDS:

• Nasopharyngeal carcinoma
• circadian clock gene PER1
• ferroptosis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: Weili Wu, Yan Zeng, Ziqi Wang, Performed the experiments: Weili Wu, Yan Zeng, Ziqi Wang, Feng Jin, Jinhua Long, Yu Chen, Mang Zhang, Hong Tang, Pan Luo, Yongying Ye. Wrote the paper: Weili Wu, Yan Zeng, Ziqi Wang. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [82060555]; Cultivate Project 2021 for National Natural Science Foundation of China Guizhou Medical University [19NSP047]; Science and Technology Fund Project of Guizhou Health Committee, China [gzwj-2022-022].