The role of fibroblast activation protein in progression and development of osteosarcoma cells

AbstractTo investigate the expression levels of fibroblast activation protein (FAP) in human osteosarcoma tissues and its possible correlations with clinical pathological characteristics of patients with osteosarcoma, and to  explore the potential effects of FAP on progression and development of osteosarcoma. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) assay was initially performed to detect the expression levels of FAP in 66 tumor tissues and adjacent non-tumor tissues. Patients were sequentially divided into two groups based on diffe rent expression levels of FAP. The correlations between the expression levels of FAP and the clinical pathological characteristics were investigated, and the role of FAP in proliferation, migration, and invasion of osteosarcoma cells was assessed via colony formation, MTT, wound healing, and transwe ll assays, respectively. The possible effects of FAP on tumor growth and metastasis were evaluated in vivo. We further attempted to reveal the underlying mechanism of FAP involved in tumor growth through bioinformatics and IHC assays. High expression levels of FAP were noted in human osteosarcoma ti ssues. It also was unveiled that FAP was significantly associated with the tumor size (P = 0.005*) and clinical stage (P = 0.017*). Our data further confirmed that knockdown of FAP remarkably blocked proliferation, migration, and invasion of osteosarcoma cells in vitro, and suppressed tumor growth and metastasis in mice via AKT signaling pathway. The possible ro...
Source: Clinical and Experimental Medicine - Category: Research Source Type: research