Human specimens and Immunohistochemistry (IHC)
With approval of the institutional review board, 90 ccRCC patients with treated with nephrectomy were included in the study. All pathological specimens were processed according to standard pathological procedures. Tissue microarrays (TMA) were constructed from paraffin embedded blocks for immunohistochemical study. For DAB2IP, p27 and Ki-67 staining, sections were firstly deparaffinized, rehydrated and subjected to heat-induced antigen retrieval. Endogenous peroxidase activity was quenched with 3% hydrogen peroxide. Sections were then incubated with appropriate primary antibodies, horseradish-peroxidase–labeled dextran polymer (DAKO EnVisionTM, Carpinteria, CA) and developed with 3,3’-diaminobenzidine chromogen followed by counter staining with hematoxylin.
Cell cultures
HK-2 and 786-0 cells were maintained in RPMI1640 medium (Gibco, Santa Clara, CA) supplied with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS), ACHN and A498 were maintained in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM) (Gibco) supplied with 10% FBS. Stable cell sublines (i.e., Con and KD) were maintained in appropriate original medium supplemented with 0.3 μg/ml puromycin. All the cells were cultured in a humidified incubator containing 5% CO2 at 37°C.
Cell viability assay
Cells were re-suspended in 100 µl of appropriate medium with 0.5% FBS and plated in 96-well plates at a concentration of 1500 cells/well. Cells were cultured for 48 hour (hr), and 20 µl of 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) was added to each well for another 4 hr incubation. Thereafter, the medium containing MTT was removed, and 150 µl DMSO was added to solubilize the formazan crystals. The absorbance (OD) of each well was then measured at a wavelength of 590 nm by a microplate autoreader (Bio-Tek Instruments, Vinooski, VT).
Cell cycle assay
Cells were fixed in cold ethanol overnight and then washed with phosphate buffered saline with 0.5% Tween 20 (PBST) for 3 times. Cells were stained with 50 µg/mL propidium iodide for 1 hr and immediately analyzed by a fluorescence-activated cell-sorting scanning (FACS) flow cytometer (BD Biosciences, NJ).
Plasmid constructs and transfection
Various expression plasmids for DAB2IP and its mutants were described previously [9]. Wildtype (WT) p27 cDNA cloned into pcDNA3.1/myc-His expression vector was obtained from Dr. Claret (The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center) [10]. A phosphomimetic mutation, S10A, was generated in the WT p27 cDNA plasmid by oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis and polymerase chain reaction using a QuickChange site-directed mutagenesis kit (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA). Primers used for the mutagenesis were: F- 5’GCGAGTGTCTAACGGGGCCCCTAGCCTGGAGCG3’ and R- 5’ CGCTCCAGGCTAGGGGCCCCGTTAGACACTCGC3’. The mutation was confirmed by sequencing. Transfections were performed using Lipofectamine LTX and PLUS (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Real-time RT-PCR
Cell total RNA was extracted with RNeasy mini kit (Qiagen, Valencia, CA) and 1 µg RNA was reverse-transcribed using iScript™ cDNA Synthesis kit from Bio-Rad (Hercules, CA) according to the manufacturer's instructions. Real-time PCR analysis was set up with SYBR Green qPCR Supermix kit (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) and carried out in the iCycler thermal cycler. The relative level of mRNA expression of each gene was determined by normalizing with 18S rRNA.
Western blot and Immunoprecipitation (IP)
Cells were lysed by ice-cold lysis buffer [150 mM NaCl, 1% Triton X-100, 0.5% sodium deoxycholate, 0.1% SDS, 50 mM Tri (pH 8.0) for 1 hr or subjected to nuclear and cytoplasmic extraction (NE-PER; Pierce Biotechnology, Rockford, IL). Lysates were then centrifuged at 13000 rpm for 10 min at 4°C to collect the supernate. Equivalent amounts of protein were separated on 4-12% gradient NuPAGE Bis-Tris Gels (Invitrogen) and transferred to nitrocellulose membranes. Membranes were blocked in 5% skim milk containing 0.1% Tween20 for 1 hr at room temperature (RT), and incubated with primary antibodies overnight at 4°C. Membranes were then washed and incubated with horseradish peroxidase conjugated secondary antibodies. Enhanced chemiluminescence were used to detected target proteins. For IP, total 300 µg of lysate was incubated with the Dynabead Protein G (Invitrogen) -conjugated antibody at 4°C for 16 hr, and then subjected to a Western blot analysis. IgG was used as negative control. Rabbit polyclonal antibodies for total p27, p27 (S10A), total AKT and AKT (S473) were all purchased from Cell Signaling Technology (Danvers, MA, USA); Mouse monoclonal antibodies for Actin and Myc-tag were from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO); monoclonal antibodies for Histone H1 and Tubulin were from Santa Cruz Biotechnology (Santa Cruz, CA).
Immunofluorescence
Cells were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde, permeabilized in 0.5% Triton X-100, blocked in 5% bovine serum albumin, and incubated with primary antibody overnight at 4 °C. The cells were washed and incubated with Alexa Fluor 488-conjugated secondary antibodies for 1 hr at RT, followed by staining with 5 mg/mL 4’, 6-diamidino-2-phenylindole before counting. Signals were examined using a fluorescence microscope.
Subcutaneous tumor models
All experimental procedures were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. 2×106 786-0 Con or KD cells were re-suspended, mixed with Matrigel (1:1 v/v) and then injected into 4-6 weeks old athymic nude mice subcutaneously. Tumor-taken incidence was monitored and tumor volume was recorded weekly. At the end of experiment, animals were sacrificed and fresh tumor tissues were collected for further studies.
Bioinformatic and statistical analysis
The RNA-Sequencing-based mRNA expression data of DAB2IP gene in patients with ccRCC was all retrieved from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) which was open-access, and provided multidimensional genomic and clinical data [11]. For DAB2IP mRNA expression, 50% cut-off point was used to dichotomize the mRNA level as Low- and High- expression because they were molecules with no established cut-off points for their expression in ccRCC. The Kaplan-Meier analysis (long-rank test) was performed to analyze patient survival. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to test the association between DAB2IP and p27 protein levels in ccRCC. Data from in vitro assay was presented as the mean ± SEM from three independent experiments, and the differences between two groups were compared by Student’s two-tail t-test. All statistical analyses were performed by GraphPad Prism6 and SPSS16.0 software.