Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), an agonist that activates specific G protein-coupled receptors, is present at an elevated concentration in the serum and ascitic fluid of ovarian cancer patients. Although the increased levels of LPA have been linked to the genesis and progression of different cancers including ovarian carcinomas, the specific signaling conduit utilized by LPA in promoting different aspects of oncogenic growth has not been identified. Here, we show that LPA stimulates both migration and proliferation of ovarian cancer cells. Using multiple approaches, we demonstrate that the stimulation of ovarian cancer cells with LPA results in a robust and statistically significant proliferative response. Our results also indicate that Gα(12), the gep proto-oncogene, which can be stimulated by LPA via specific LPA receptors, is overtly activated in a large array of ovarian cancer cells. We further establish that LPA stimulates the rapid activation of Gα(12) in SKOV-3 cells and the expression of CT12, an inhibitory minigene of Gα(12) that disrupts LPAR-Gα(12) interaction and potently inhibits such activation. Using this inhibitory molecule as well as the shRNA approach, we show that the inhibition of Gα(12) or silencing of its expression drastically and significantly attenuates LPA-mediated proliferation of ovarian cancer cell lines such as SKOV3, Hey, and OVCAR-3. Together with our findings that the silencing of Gα(12) does not have any significant effect on LPA-mediated migratory response of SKOV3 cells, our results point to a critical role for LPA-LPAR-Gα(12) signaling in ovarian cancer cell proliferation and not in migration. Thus, results presented here for the first time demonstrate that the gep proto-oncogene forms a specific node in LPA-LPAR-mediated mitogenic signaling in ovarian cancer cells.
Keywords: LPA; gep; metastasis; oncogene; proliferation.