Involvement of the CREB5 regulatory network in colorectal cancer metastasis.

The signal regulatory network involved in colorectal cancer metastasis is complicated and thus the search for key control steps in the network is of great significance for unraveling colorectal cancer metastasis mechanism and finding drug-target site. Previous studies suggested that CREB5 (cAMP responsive element binding protein 5) might play key role in the metastatic signal network of colorectal cancer. Through colorectal cancer expression profile and enriching analysis of the effect of CREB5 gene expression levels on colorectal cancer molecular events, we found that these molecular events are correlated with tumor metastasis. Based on the feature that CREB5 could combine with c-Jun to form heterodimer, together with enriched binding sites for transcription factor AP-1, we identified 16 genes which were up-regulated in the CREB5 high-expression group, contained AP-1 binding sites, and participated in cancer pathway. The molecular network involving these 16 genes, in particular, CSF1R, MMP9, PDGFRB, FIGF and IL6, regulates cell migration. Therefore, CREB5 might accelerate the metastasis of colorectal cancer by regulating these five key genes.