A small Rho GTPase RAB25 with a potential role in chemotherapy resistance in pancreatic cancer

BACKGROUND: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is one of the major human health challenges with minimal therapeutic benefits due to its late detection, and de novo – and acquired chemotherapy resistance. OBJECTIVE: In this work we unravel the potential pro-survival role of RAB25 in pancreatic cancer chemotherapy resistance and aim to identify if RAB25is a prognostic marker of patients’ survival in PDA. METHODS: We used RNA sequencing, shRNA mediated gene knockdown, BioGRID open repository of CRISPR screens (ORCS), GEPIA, kmplot.com, and cBioPortal.org databases to identify the role of RAB25 in PDA cell proliferation, chemotherapy response, expression in tumour versus normal tissues, and overall patients’ survival. RESULTS: RNA sequencing show Rab25 to be one of the top upregulated genes in gemcitabine resistant mouse PDA cells. Knockdown of Rab25 in these cells enhanced gemcitabine toxicity. In addition, re-analysis of previously published CRISPR/Cas9 data confirm RAB25 to be responsible for chemotherapy resistance in KRASG12D mutant human pancreatic cancer cell line. Finally, we used publicly available TCGA datasets and identify the upregulation of RAB25 in tumour tissues compared to the adjacent normal tissue, co-occurrence of KRASG12 mutations with RAB25 amplifications, and poor patients’ survival in cohorts with higher mRNA expression of RAB25. CONCLUSION: RAB25 expression is a prognostic marker for patient’s survival and gemcitabine resistance in PDA.