Investigating the mechanisms of iron homeostasis regulating intercellular communication in tumorigenesis
Iron is an essential trace element in living organisms and is crucial for a variety of biological processes closely related to tumors, and the Ferritin heavy chain (Fth) is a key protein regulating intracellular iron homeostasis. Inhibiting its expression can cause intracellular iron ion deposition and induce the occurrence of Ferroptosis. Here, with the depletion of Fer1HCH (Ferritin 1 heavy chain homologue) in RasV12 cells could cause the non-autonomous overgrowth of cells surrounding RasV12 cells. To explore the regulatory effect of iron homeostasis on intercellular communication in tumor cells and the corresponding mechanism, we obtained the GFP-labelled RasV12 Fer1HCH.RNAi cells and non-GFP proliferating WT cells via flow cytometry fluorescence sorting (FACS) technology, which subsequently subjected to bulk RNA-seq and ATAC-seq data analysis. Through the multi-omics data analysis, we revealed the underlying molecular mechanisms responsible for the non-autonomous tumorigenesis.