KLHL21/CYLD signaling confers aggressiveness in bladder cancer through inactivating NF-κB signaling

Bladder carcinoma (BC) is one of the most commonly diagnosed malignant cancers worldwide. Kelch-like protein 21 (KLHL21) has been shown to be involved in a number of human tumors. The study aimed to investigate the effects and mechanism of KLHL21 on BC progression. We found that KLHL21 expression was significantly decreased in human BC tissues and cell lines compared with the paired normal samples, and patients with lower KLHL21 expression exhibited poorer overall survival. In vitro studies then showed that KLHL21 over-expression significantly reduced the proliferation, migration and invasion in BC cells, while KLHL21 knockdown markedly accelerated the proliferative, migratory and invasive properties of BC cells. Animal studies confirmed that KLHL21 exhibited anti-tumor function in the xenograft mouse models, as indicated by the reduced tumor growth rates, and mice with KLHL21 knockdown showed the opposite tumor growth profile. Additionally, we found that KLHL21 negatively mediated the nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) signaling activation, as well as its down-streaming molecules involved in the biological regulation of cell survival, death and migratory processes. Mechanistically, cylindromatosis (CYLD) expression levels were significantly up-regulated in BC cells over-expressing KLHL21, but were down-regulated upon KLHL21 knockdown. We further uncovered that KLHL21 directly interacted with CYLD in BC cells. Of note, we found that KLHL21 mainly in cytoplasm could restrain CYLD degradation by prohibiting its ubiquitination in BC cells. More importantly, our in vitro experiments displayed that KLHL21-inhibited progression and NF-κB/p65 activation in BC cells were completely abolished by CYLD deletion, revealing that CYLD expression was required for KLHL21 to perform its anti-tumor function in BC. Collectively, all these findings uncovered that KLHL21/CYLD axis may be a promising therapeutic target for BC treatment.