Distal metastasis is the major cause of death for the vast majority of lung cancer patients. Many extracellular matrix (ECM)-related molecules are proposed to be associated with the migration and invasion of cancer cells. FRAS1 encodes an ECM protein, however, little is known about its function on tumorigenesis and metastasis of lung cancer. In this work, FRAS1 was silenced by shRNA in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) A549 cell line. The capacities of A549 cells to migrate and invade were decreased markedly after FRAS1 knockdown. The shRNA knockdown of FRAS1 was found to be specific and had no effect on A549 cells proliferation. Western blot experiments demonstrated that FRAS1 knockdown inhibited FAK signaling but not Src signaling. Overall, we found that FRAS1 knockdown reduces A549 cells migration and invasion ability through downregulation of FAK signaling.
Keywords: FAK signaling; FRAS1; Lung cancer metastasis; migration and invasion.