B cell translocation gene 2 (BTG2/TIS21/PC3) belongs to the family of antiproliferative (APRO) genes and reported as a tumor suppressor by our group and others. Expression of BTG2 is significantly reduced in cancers developed in various organs and tissues. EJ (bladder carcinoma cells), MKN-1 (gastric cancer cells) are highly invasive and metastatic cells with very less endogenous BTG2 expression due to epigenetic regulation. Significantly lower endogenous expression of BTG2 was observed in human muscle-invasive bladder cancers (MIBC) than matched normal tissues and non-muscle invasive bladder cancers (NMIBC). BTG2 expression was inversely correlated with increased expression of the DNA methyltransferases DNMT1 and DNMT3a in MIBC, but not NMIBC, suggesting a potential role for BTG2 expression in muscle invasion of bladder cancer. Over 90% of tumor tissues revealed strong methylation at CpG islands of the BTG2 gene, compared with no methylation in the normal tissues, implying epigenetic regulation of BTG2 expression in bladder carcinogenesis.
BTG2 is constitutively expressed in mucous epithelium and parietal cells of gastric glands in stomach, and the expression was increased in mucous epithelium with H. pylori infection as opposed to loss in human gastric adenocarcinoma. Indeed, adenoviral transduction of BTG2 significantly inhibited Tipα activity in MKN-1 and MGT-40, human and mouse gastric cancer cells, respectively, thereby downregulated TNFα expression and Erk1/2 phosphorylation via reducing nucleolin, Tipα receptor, expression. Chromatin immunoprecipitation proved that BTG2 inhibited Sp1 expression and it’s binding to the promoter of nucleolin gene. In addition, BTG2 expression significantly reduced membrane localized nucleolin expression in cancer cells and the loss of BTG2/TIS21 expression rather induced cytoplasmic nucleolin availability in gastric cancer tissues, evidenced by immunoblot and immunohistochemistry. The higher expression of BTG2 and the lower nucleolin expression accompanied with the better overall survival of the poorly differentiated gastric cancer patients.