Flotillin-2 promotes metastasis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma by activating NF-κB and PI3K/Akt3 signaling pathways

Lipid raft proteins have been confirmed to be important in cell signal transduction. Some reports have shown that the aberrant expression of lipid raft proteins is associated with malignant phenotypes in some cancers. However, the role of the lipid raft protein flotillin-2 (Flot-2) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) remains to be comprehensively characterized. Here, overexpression of Flot-2 in NPC tissues and cell lines was detected by immunostaining, and Flot-2 expression was found to be positively associated with NPC metastasis. Furthermore, inhibiting Flot-2 expression impaired the malignancy of the highly metastatic NPC cell line 5-8F by constraining its growth and proliferation, mobility and migration, and decreasing the capacity of 5-8F cells to metastasize in nude mice. In contrast, forced overexpression of Flot-2 increased the malignancy of 6-10B, a non-metastatic NPC cell line that weakly expresses Flot-2. Moreover, in 5-8F-shFlot-2 cells, which have inhibited Flot-2 expression, the NF-κB and PI3K/Akt3 pathways were inactivated. Subsequently, MMPs expression were decreased, and Foxo1 activity was increased. In addition, enhanced NF-κB and PI3K/Akt3 activities were observed in Flot-2 overexpressing 6-10B cells. Thus, Flot-2 exerts a pro-neoplastic role in NPC and is involved in tumor progression and metastasis. Moreover, Flot-2 exerts its role through NF-κB and PI3K/Akt3 signaling.