Objectives: For many years, tumor development has been viewed as a cell-autonomous process; however, today we know that the tumor microenvironment (TME) and especially cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) significantly contribute to tumor progression. Caveolin-1 (Cav-1) is a scaffolding protein which is involved in several cancer-associated processes as important component of the caveolae. Our goal was to shed light on the expression of the two different isoforms of Cav-1 in normal fibroblasts (NFs) and CAFs of patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC).
Materials and methods: Fibroblasts from normal mucosa and CAFs were isolated and propagated in vitro. Gene expression of the different Cav-1 isoforms was assessed via quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and supplemented by protein expression analysis.
Results: We could show that the Cav-1β isoform is more highly expressed in NFs and CAFs compared to Cav-1α. Furthermore, the different Cav-1 isoforms tended to be differently expressed in different tumor stages. However, this trend could not be seen consistently, which is in line with the ambiguous role of Cav-1 in tumor progression described in literature. Western blotting furthermore revealed that NFs and CAFs might differ in the oligomerization profile of the Cav-1 protein.
Conclusion: These differences in expression of Cav-1 between NFs and CAFs of patients with OSCC confirm that the protein might play a role in tumor progression and is of interest for further analyses.
Clinical relevance: Our findings support a possible role of the two isoforms of Cav-1 in the malignant transformation of OSCC.
Keywords: Cancer-associated fibroblasts; Caveolin-1α; Caveolin-1β; Fibroblasts; Oral squamous cell carcinoma.
© 2021. The Author(s).