Fibronectin promotes migration and invasion of ovarian cancer cells through up-regulation of FAK-PI3K/Akt pathway.

This study investigates the mechanism of fibronectin (Fn) in stimulating ovarian cancer cell migration and invasion through up-regulation of FAK pathway. Human ovarian cancer cells (OVCAR-3, A2780/CP70) were cultured and treated with fibronectin (10 µg/ml). Trans-well plates were used to conduct the migration assay, real-time RT-PCR for FAK mRNA expression, and FAK siRNA for blocking FAK expression. Western blots were used for P-FAK, P-PI3K and P-Akt analysis. Fibronectin treated OVCAR-3, A2780/CP70 cells have increased ability to migrate and invade. It significantly promoted this behaviour through the phosphorylation of FAK. The cell displayed significantly increased signaling regulation of the FAK pathway (p-PI3K/P-Akt). Furthermore, siRNA FAK treated cells had reduced the levels of p-PI3K/ P-Akt after induced by Fibronectin. Our results indicate that FAK inhibition can suppress ovarian cancer cells migration and invasion through inhibiting downstream signaling (PI3K/AKT), which might be a therapeutic target or biomarker for ovarian cancer. PMID: 24115647 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Cell Biology International - Category: Cytology Authors: Tags: Cell Biol Int Source Type: research