C1QBP is upregulated in colon cancer and binds to apolipoprotein A-I

The present study aimed to investigate the expression of complement component 1, q subcomponent-binding protein (C1QBP) in colon cancer cells, and identify proteins that interact with C1QBP. Total proteins were extracted from both the tumor and normal tissues of 22 patients with colon cancer and analyzed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to identify proteins that were differentially-expressed in tumor tissues. C1QBP overexpression was induced in 293T cells using a pFLAG-CMV2 expression vector. Overexpressed FLAG-tagged C1QBP protein was then immunoprecipitated using anti-FLAG antibodies and C1QBP-interacting proteins were screened using LC-MS analysis of the immunoprecipitates. The C1QBP-interacting proteins were confirmed using reverse-immunoprecipitation and the differential expression of C1QBP in tissues and cell lines was confirmed using western blot analysis. LC-MS analysis revealed that C1QBP exhibited a typical tumor expression pattern. Two immune-reactive signals (33 and 14 kDa) were detected in normal and tumor tissues from 19 patients. Furthermore, 14 kDa C1QBP protein was upregulated in the tumors of 15 patients. In total, 39 proteins were identified as candidate C1QBP-interacting proteins, and an interaction between C1QBP and apolipoprotein A-I was confirmed. The present study indicates that C1QBP is involved in colon cancer carcinogenesis, and that the mechanisms underlying the established anti-tumor properties of apolipoprotein A-I may include interacting with and inhibiting the activity of C1QBP.