Carcinoembryonic antigen-related cell adhesion molecule 6 (CEACAM6) shows increased expression in a wide variety of human cancers, and its over-expression is associated with enhanced migration, invasion, and in vivo metastasis. Here, we reported that CEACAM6 was up-regulated in gastric cancer (GC) cell lines and tumor tissues. Over-expression of CEACAM6 in MKN-45 and SGC-7901 GC cells promoted migration and invasion in vitro and metastasis in athymic mice, whereas migration and invasion of MKN-28 and SNU-16 GC cells were suppressed by knockdown of CEACAM6. We also observed that steroid receptor coactivator (C-SRC) phosphorylation was increased when CEACAM6 was over-expressed in SGC-7901 cells. Taken together, these results suggested that CEACAM6 functions as an oncoprotein in GC and may be an important metastatic biomarker and therapeutic target.
Keywords: C-SRC; CEACAM6; gastric cancer; invasion; metastasis.