HIC1 attenuates invasion and metastasis by inhibiting the IL-6/STAT3 signalling pathway in human pancreatic cancer

•Expression of HIC1 is silenced in PDAC, which predicts worse patient survival and prognosis.•HIC1 inhibits pancreatic cancer invasion and metastasis.•HIC1 impairs STAT3 DNA binding activity and represses STAT3 target genes expression.•HIC1 and STAT3 interaction is very important to elucidate the mechanism of pancreatic cancer invasion and metastasis.

Hypermethylated in cancer 1 (HIC1) is a tumour suppressor gene that is frequently deleted or epigenetically silenced in many human cancers. However, the molecular function of HIC1 in pancreatic cancer has not been fully elucidated, especially in cancer invasion and metastasis. We aimed to clarify the clinical relevance of HIC1 and human pancreatic cancer and the mechanism of its effect on invasion and metastasis .HIC1 was downregulated in pancreatic cancer patient cancer tissue and pancreatic cancer cell lines. A tissue microarray analysis demonstrated that negative HIC1 expression predicted advanced pathological stages and worse patient survival. In addition, HIC1 inhibited the invasion and metastasis of pancreatic cancer cells both in vitro and in vivo. Finally, HIC1 repressed the expression of STAT3 target genes, including c-Myc, VEGF, CyclinD1, MMP2 and MMP9, by binding and interacting with STAT3 to impede its DNA-binding ability but without affecting the protein levels of STAT3 and p-STAT3. Therefore, HIC1 appears to function as a STAT3 inhibitor and may be a promising target for cancer research and for the development of an optimal treatment approach for pancreatic cancer.