Myotubularin-related phosphatase 3 promotes invasion and metastasis by repressing autophagy of colorectal cancer cells

With the development of modern society, human living standards have improved substantiallythus altering their lifestyles, particularly eating habits. These changes haveresulted in an increased incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) in recent years. More than one million new cases of CRC are diagnosed worldwide and more than half a million deaths occur due to CRC, each year, making CRC the main cause of cancer-related mortality. In this study, we explored the role of myosin-related phosphatase 3 (MTMR3) in the invasion and metastasis of CRC by transfecting the human CRC cell line, HCT116 cells, with lentivirus-mediated short interfering RNA. A wound healing assay was performed to evaluate the effect of MTMR3 knockdown on cell migration ability. The effect of MTMR3 knockdown on the endothelial-mesenchymal transition and cell apoptosis was evaluated by western blot analysis. Our results indicate that knockdown MTMR3 significantly reduced the invasion and metastatic ability of HCT116 cells and promoted cell autophagy (p < 0.05).These results demonstrate that silencing of MTMR3 shows potential as an effective treatment for CRC.