LRRC59 promotes the progression of oral squamous cell carcinoma by interacting with SRP pathway components and enhancing the secretion of CKAP4-containing exosomes.

Background: As a ribosome receptor, LRRC59 was thought to regulate mRNA translation on the ER membrane. Evidence suggests that LRRC59 is overexpressed in a number of human malignancies and is associated with poor prognoses, but its primary biological function in the development of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) remains obscure.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate at the expression changes and functional role of LRRC59 in OSCC.

Methods: LRRC59 gene expression and correlation with prognosis of OSCC patients were first examined using the data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databases. Following that, a series of functional experiments, including cell counting kit-8, cell cycle analysis, wound healing assays, and transwell assays, were carried out to analyze the biological roles of LRRC59 in tumor cells. Mechanistically, we employed Tandem Affinity Purification-Mass Spectrometry (TAP-MS) approach to isolate and identify protein complexes of LRRC59. Downstream regulatory proteins of LRRC59 were verified through immunoprecipitation and immunofluorescence experiments. Furthermore, we isolated exosomes from OSCC cell supernatant and conducted co-culture experiments to examine the effect of LRRC59 knockdown on OSCC cells.

Results: In samples from OSCC patients, LRRC59 was highly expressed and correlated with poor prognoses. Moreover, the gene sets analysis based on TCGA RNA-seq data indicated that LRRC59 seemed to be strongly related with protein secretory and OSCC migration. Upregulated levels of LRRC59 are more prone to lymph node metastasis in OSCC patients. LRRC59 knockdown impaired the ability of OSCC cell proliferation, migration, and invasion invitro. Mechanistically, our TAP-MS data situate LRRC59 in a functional nexus for mRNA translation regulation via interactions with SRP pathway components, translational initiation factors, CRD-mediated mRNA stabilization factors. More importantly, we found that LRRC59 interacted with cytoskeleton-associated protein 4 (CKAP4) and promoted the formation of CKAP4-containing exosomes. We also revealed that the LRRC59-CKAP4 axis was a crucial regulator of CKAP4-containing exosome secretion in OSCC cells for migration and invasion.

Conclusions: Therefore, based on our findings, LRRC59 may serve as a potential biomarker for OSCC patients, and LRRC59-induced exosome secretion via the CKAP4 axis may serve as a potential therapeutic target for OSCC.