A recent study led by Dr. XIE Dong’s group from Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, revealed the role and mechanism of Bone morphogenetic protein 10 (BMP10) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), providing therapeutic targets for treatment of liver cancer.   

Bone morphogenetic protein 10 (BMP10), one member of the BMP family, is involved in various development events. Dysregulation of BMP10 has been observed in several diseases, including hypertensive cardiac hypertrophy, Hirschsprung disease and blood vessel formation. However, its role in liver cancer remains largely unknown.   

In this study, the researchers reported that BMP10 was significantly downregulated in HCC at both mRNA and protein level. Decreased BMP10 was associated with bigger tumor size, worse TNM stage, earlier recurrence and poorer survival. BMP10 negatively regulated HCC cell proliferation in vitro and in vivo. Mechanism study revealed that BMP10 suppressed tumor cell growth by inhibiting STAT3 signaling. Interestingly, the researchers found that cytoplasmic BMP10 interacted with both receptor protein tyrosine phosphatase sigma (PTPRS) and STAT3, which facilitated dephosphorylation of STAT3 by PTPRS.   

Altogether, this work revealed the clinical significance of BMP10 in HCC, and suppression of HCC cell growth by BMP10 via PTPRS-STAT3 axis, providing a potential therapeutic strategy for targeting STAT3 signaling in HCC.   

This work entitled “BMP10 suppresses hepatocellular carcinoma progression via PTPRS-STAT3 axis” was published online in Oncogene on Aug 15^th, 2019.    

The doctoral student YUAN Yanmei is the first author, and Dr. XIE Dong and Dr. LI Jing-Jing are the co-corresponding authors of this publication. The study was funded by grants from National Key R&D Program of China, the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and National Natural Science Foundation of China. 

Media Contact: 
WANG Jin (Ms.) 
Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health,
Chinese Academy of Sciences 
Email: sibssc@sibs.ac.cn