TWEAK Inhibits Venous Thrombosis Progression Through the NF-κB Signaling Pathway in Lung Cancer

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a common complication of malignancy, which greatly increases the mortality rate of tumor patients. Therefore, it is critical to understand the mechanism of malignancy and DVT. TWEAK expression in lung adenocarcinoma tissues from TCGA dataset was performed by using GEPIA and detected in 58 lung cancer patients with DVT by qRT-PCR. TWEAK shRNAs were transfected into endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) to analyze the consequent alteration in EPCs behaviors through CCK-8, cloning formation, transwell, and flow cytometry assays. TWEAK was obviously declined in lung cancer patients with DVT and low expression of TWEAK was related to poor overall survival. The function experiments revealed that TWEAK over-expression facilitated EPCs proliferation, migration, invasion, and attenuated cell apoptosis. However, TWEAK inhibition showed the opposite effects on EPCs behavior. Mechanistically, TWEAK over-expression promoted the activation of p-p65 and p-IkBα. Moreover, NF-κB pathway inhibitor overturned the effects of TWEAK on EPCs proliferation, metastasis and apoptosis. TWEAK might inhibit venous thrombosis progression through the NF-κB signaling pathway in lung cancer.