Effects of metalloprotease ADAMTS12 on cervical cancer cell phenotype and its potential mechanism

ADAMTS12 is a gene widely expressed in human tissues. We studied the expression level of ADAMTS12 in cervical cancer tissue and its relationship with clinicopathological features. We also explored the function of ADAMTS12 in cervical cancer cells and its underlying mechanisms. We found the higher expression level of ADAMTS12 in cancer tissues, which was associated with the worse overall survival rate. The immunofluorescence assay showed that the cytoplasm of cervical cancer cells is the main expression site of ADAMTS12. Overexpression of ADAMTS12 in HeLa and CaSki cells prominently promoted the cell proliferation, migration and invasion. We found that 2032 genes were correlated with ADAMTS12, which was mainly related to extracellular matrix, TGF-β signaling pathway. The phosphorylation levels of mTOR and 4E-BP1 were upregulated in ADAMTS12-overexpressing cells. Co-Immunoprecipitation combined with protein mass spectrometry showed that TGF-β signaling pathway-related proteins interacting with ADAMTS12 were screened from HeLa cells with ADAMTS12 overexpression. Therefore, we concluded that ADAMTS12 may affect the mTOR signaling pathway through the interacting with TGF-β1, and then affect the biological function of cervical cancer cells. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12672-023-00776-2.