Programmed cell death (PCD) is defined as a physiological process that plays a critical role in normal development, cellular differentiation, and tissue homeostasis of multicellular organisms (
15-
17). Dysregulation of this physiological cell death process contributes to the pathogenesis of human diseases including cancer (
18). In addition to apoptosis (type I cell death), which has long been used as a synonym for PCD, accumulating evidence suggests that autophagy (type II cell death) also belongs to PCD (
19). Autophagy is a highly orchestrated self-digestion process that involves multiple steps from the formation of autophagic vesicles to lysosomal degradation of the vesicles and their contents (
19-
21). As with apoptosis, autophagy also contributes to proper morphogenesis during development and tissue homeostasis in mature organisms (
21).
Bif-1, also known as endophilin B1 and SH3GLB1 (SH3 domain GRB2-like endophilin B1), was originally identified as a Bax-binding protein by yeast two-hybrid screens using Bax as the bait (
11,
22). The human Bif-1 gene encodes a 365 amino-acid polypeptide that contains an N-terminal BAR (Bin/Amphiphysin/Rvs) domain, a central coiled-coil domain, and a C-terminal SH3 domain. The N-terminal part (1-27 amino acids) of Bif-1 is required for its binding to Bax (
11,
22). Moreover, the interaction between Bif-1 and Bax is enhanced in mammalian cells during apoptosis, which is accompanied by a conformational change in the Bax protein (
11,
12,
23).
Overexpression of Bif-1 promotes Bax activation and apoptosis (
11), whereas inhibition of Bif-1 expression suppresses Bax/Bak conformational activation, cytochrome c release, caspase activation, and cell death in response to intrinsic apoptosis signals (
12). It has also been demonstrated that Bif-1 regulates apoptosis by mediating the mitochondrial fission process (
24). This suggests that Bif-1 may represent a new type of Bax activator controlling the mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis.
Besides its role as a Bax activator, Bif-1 has recently been found to be involved in autophagosome formation and autophagic cell death (
13). Bif-1 interacts with Beclin 1 through UVRAG to positively regulate the class III PI3-kinase (PI3KC3) lipid kinase during autophagy. Although the C-terminal SH3 domain of Bif-1 is sufficient for binding to UVRAG, the N-terminal BAR domain of Bif-1 is also required for Bif-1 to activate PI3KC3 lipid kinase and induce autophagosome formation. Suppression of Bif-1 expression inhibits autophagy and prolongs cell survival under nutrient starvation. Moreover, Bif-1 ablation promotes the development of spontaneous tumors in mice, consistent with the notion that both apoptosis and autophagy play crucial roles in tumor suppression (
19,
25-
27).
It has been shown that the Bif-1 mRNA levels are downregulated in lung carcinomas (
28), and that approximately 60% gastric carcinomas express undetectable levels of Bif-1 protein (
14). In addition, loss of heterozygosity (LOH) on 1p22, where the bif-1 gene is localized, is frequently observed in many types of tumor (
29-
37). In CRC 1p22 deletions were identified in >70% of advanced stage and metastatic tumors (
36). These results are in agreement with other studies showing that 1p deletion was significantly more common in metastatic as compared to primary CRC (
37). Others have described a 38% incidence of 1p deletions in 34 sporadic colorectal adenomas, using a centromeric probe for chromosome 1 and a simultaneous telomeric probe mapping to 1p36. These authors concluded that 1p deletion is an early event in colorectal tumorigenesis (38). These data and the observation that inhibition of Bif-1 expression promotes tumor development in mice (
12,
13), propose Bif-1 as a candidate tumor suppressor gene.
In this study we found that the expression of Bif-1 was absent in 22.5% of CRC but all of the NR samples were Bif-1 positive. This difference was statistically significant (p=0.002). This finding is in agreement with the tumor suppressor function of Bif-1. Remarkably, this trend of Bif-1 protein expression down regulation in CRC was mirrored by significant decrease in the mRNA levels of Bif-1 at an early stage of colorectal cancer development. Since loss of Bif-1 not only suppresses Bax/Bak activation and apoptosis (
12) but also inhibits PI3KC3 activation and autophagy (
13), it remains to be determined whether the tumor suppressor activity of Bif-1 is due to its pro-apoptotic activity, pro-autophagic activity, or both.
A previous study has reported allelic loss in 1p36 and 1p32 regions of chromosome 1 as independent predictor of poor prognosis in patients with CRC (39). Here, complete follow up information was available only for a subset of the patients studied. The correlation of Bif-1 protein expression and patient survival in CRC is warrant further evaluation.