Endostatin combined with radiotherapy suppresses vasculogenic mimicry formation through inhibition of epithelial-mesenchymal transition in esophageal cancer

The growth of solid tumors requires angiogenesis to provide oxygen and nutrients and to support cell proliferation. The switch from an avascular to a vascular phenotype is typically related to acceleration of tumor growth. Anti-angiogenic therapy is becoming a very promising way for malignant tumors. Meanwhile, malignant tumor cells themselves were able to develop the formation of cell-lined vessels that contribute to tumor neovascularization and supply the nutrients and oxygen, which is called vasculogenic mimicry (VM). However, the molecular mechanism of VM remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of the novel recombinant human endostatin (rh-Endo) protein combined with radiotherapy on human esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) cell lines Eca-109 and TE13. Our results showed that rh-Endo combined with radiotherapy significantly inhibited the proliferation, migration, invasion, and VM of human esophageal cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner; however, it has no direct effect on apoptosis of carcinoma cells, which indicated that rh-Endo combined with radiotherapy significantly changed the microenvironment of esophageal carcinoma, and played an important role in preventing distant metastasis. Our findings suggested that rh-Endo inhibited the metastasis of esophageal cancer and the activation of AKT pathway, and the down-regulation of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) may be associated with such effect of rh-Endo. These results also supported the bright prospect of rh-Endo combined with radiotherapy for clinical applications in the future.