International Journal of Molecular Sciences Article The Alteration of CTNNBIP1 in Lung Cancer Jia-Ming Chang 1,2, Alexander Charng-Dar Tsai 3, Way-Ren Huang 4 and Ruo-Chia Tseng 3,* 1 Department of Surgery, Division of Thoracic Surgery, Chia-Yi Christian Hospital, Chiayi 60002, Taiwan;
[email protected] 2 Department of Physical Therapy, College of Medical and Health Science, Asia University, Taichung 41354, Taiwan 3 Department of Molecular Biology and Human Genetics, Tzu Chi University, Hualien 97004, Taiwan;
[email protected] 4 GLORIA Operation Center, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 28 September 2019; Accepted: 12 November 2019; Published: 13 November 2019 Abstract: β-catenin is a major component of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, and is known to play a role in lung tumorigenesis. β-catenin-interacting protein 1 (CTNNBIP1) is a known repressor of β-catenin transactivation. However, little is known about the role of CTNNBIP1 in lung cancer. The aim of this study was to carry out a molecular analysis of CTNNBIP1 and its effect on β-catenin signaling, using samples from lung cancer patients and various lung cancer cell lines. Our results indicate a significant inverse correlation between the CTNNBIP1 mRNA expression levels and the CTNNBIP1 promoter hypermethylation, which suggests that the promoter hypermethylation is responsible for the low levels of CTNNBIP1 present in many lung cancer patient samples. The ectopic expression of CTNNBIP1 is able to reduce the β-catenin transactivation; this then brings about a decrease in the expression of β-catenin-targeted genes, such as matrix metalloproteinase 7 (MMP7).