Integrin α3β1 on tumor keratinocytes is essential to maintain tumor growth and promotes a tumor-supportive keratinocyte secretome.

Development of integrin-targeted cancer therapies is hindered by incomplete understanding of integrin function in tumor cells and the tumor microenvironment. Previous studies showed that mice with epidermis-specific deletion of the α3 integrin subunit fail to form skin tumors during two-step chemical tumorigenesis, indicating a pro-tumorigenic role for integrin α3β1. Here we generated mice with tamoxifen-inducible, epidermis-specific α3 knockout to determine the role of α3β1 in the maintenance of established tumor cells and/or the associated stroma.
Source: Journal of Investigative Dermatology - Category: Dermatology Authors: Tags: Original Article Source Type: research