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Targeting p21-activated kinase 1 inhibits growth and metastasis via Raf1/MEK1/ERK signaling in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cells
BACKGROUND: p21-activated kinase 1 (PAK1) plays a fundamental role in promoting the development and progression of several cancers and is a potential therapeutic target. However, the biological function and underlying mechanism of PAK1 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remain unclear. MET...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6458688/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30971268 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12964-019-0343-5 |
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author | Chen, Liang Bi, Shuning Hou, Jiuzhou Zhao, Zhijun Wang, Chaojie Xie, Songqiang |
author_facet | Chen, Liang Bi, Shuning Hou, Jiuzhou Zhao, Zhijun Wang, Chaojie Xie, Songqiang |
author_sort | Chen, Liang |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: p21-activated kinase 1 (PAK1) plays a fundamental role in promoting the development and progression of several cancers and is a potential therapeutic target. However, the biological function and underlying mechanism of PAK1 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remain unclear. METHODS: The expression of PAK1 was detected in both ESCC cell lines and clinical samples. Cell growth was measured by MTT, focus formation and soft agar assays. Cell migration and invasion were detected by wound healing and transwell assays. Animal models of subcutaneous tumourigenicity and tail vein metastasis were performed to determine the inhibitory effect of pharmacological inhibitor IPA-3 on tumor growth and metastasis of ESCC cells. RESULTS: We found that PAK1 was frequently overexpressed in ESCC. Ectopic expression of PAK1 promoted cellular growth, colony formation and anchorage-independent growth. Overexpressing PAK1 also enhanced migration, invasion and the expression of MMP-2 and MMP-9 in ESCC cells. In contrast, silencing PAK1 by lentiviral knockdown or a specific inhibitor IPA-3 resulted in a contrary effect. Subsequent investigations revealed that Raf1/MEK1/ERK signaling pathway was involved in PAK1-mediated effect. Enhanced expression of Raf1 attenuated the inhibitory functions of PAK1 shRNA. Whereas blocking of Raf1 by shRNA or specific inhibition of MEK1 by U0126 antagonized the oncogenetic effect of PAK1 on ESCC cells. More importantly, Pharmacological inhibition of PAK1 by IPA-3 significantly suppressed tumor growth and lung metastasis of ESCC cells in vivo. CONCLUSIONS: These data support that PAK1 is an ideal target for the development of potential therapeutic drugs for ESCC patients even with metastasis. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12964-019-0343-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6458688 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-64586882019-04-19 Targeting p21-activated kinase 1 inhibits growth and metastasis via Raf1/MEK1/ERK signaling in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cells Chen, Liang Bi, Shuning Hou, Jiuzhou Zhao, Zhijun Wang, Chaojie Xie, Songqiang Cell Commun Signal Research BACKGROUND: p21-activated kinase 1 (PAK1) plays a fundamental role in promoting the development and progression of several cancers and is a potential therapeutic target. However, the biological function and underlying mechanism of PAK1 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remain unclear. METHODS: The expression of PAK1 was detected in both ESCC cell lines and clinical samples. Cell growth was measured by MTT, focus formation and soft agar assays. Cell migration and invasion were detected by wound healing and transwell assays. Animal models of subcutaneous tumourigenicity and tail vein metastasis were performed to determine the inhibitory effect of pharmacological inhibitor IPA-3 on tumor growth and metastasis of ESCC cells. RESULTS: We found that PAK1 was frequently overexpressed in ESCC. Ectopic expression of PAK1 promoted cellular growth, colony formation and anchorage-independent growth. Overexpressing PAK1 also enhanced migration, invasion and the expression of MMP-2 and MMP-9 in ESCC cells. In contrast, silencing PAK1 by lentiviral knockdown or a specific inhibitor IPA-3 resulted in a contrary effect. Subsequent investigations revealed that Raf1/MEK1/ERK signaling pathway was involved in PAK1-mediated effect. Enhanced expression of Raf1 attenuated the inhibitory functions of PAK1 shRNA. Whereas blocking of Raf1 by shRNA or specific inhibition of MEK1 by U0126 antagonized the oncogenetic effect of PAK1 on ESCC cells. More importantly, Pharmacological inhibition of PAK1 by IPA-3 significantly suppressed tumor growth and lung metastasis of ESCC cells in vivo. CONCLUSIONS: These data support that PAK1 is an ideal target for the development of potential therapeutic drugs for ESCC patients even with metastasis. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12964-019-0343-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2019-04-11 /pmc/articles/PMC6458688/ /pubmed/30971268 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12964-019-0343-5 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Chen, Liang Bi, Shuning Hou, Jiuzhou Zhao, Zhijun Wang, Chaojie Xie, Songqiang Targeting p21-activated kinase 1 inhibits growth and metastasis via Raf1/MEK1/ERK signaling in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cells |
title | Targeting p21-activated kinase 1 inhibits growth and metastasis via Raf1/MEK1/ERK signaling in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cells |
title_full | Targeting p21-activated kinase 1 inhibits growth and metastasis via Raf1/MEK1/ERK signaling in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cells |
title_fullStr | Targeting p21-activated kinase 1 inhibits growth and metastasis via Raf1/MEK1/ERK signaling in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cells |
title_full_unstemmed | Targeting p21-activated kinase 1 inhibits growth and metastasis via Raf1/MEK1/ERK signaling in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cells |
title_short | Targeting p21-activated kinase 1 inhibits growth and metastasis via Raf1/MEK1/ERK signaling in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cells |
title_sort | targeting p21-activated kinase 1 inhibits growth and metastasis via raf1/mek1/erk signaling in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cells |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6458688/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30971268 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12964-019-0343-5 |
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