Recently, RASAL2 has been found to function as a tumor and metastasis suppressor. RASAL2 inhibited tumor growth, progression, and metastasis in several cancers. However, the regulatory effect of RASAL2 in NPC still remains unclear. The purpose of this paper was to identify the role of RASAL2 in the metastasis of NPC. The expression of RASAL2 in human NPC was obviously down-regulated by real-time PCR analysis. Furthermore, knock-down of RASAL2 with siRNA treatment resulted in a promotion of cell proliferation and migration in vitro. Additionally, transwell analysis results revealed that the number of invasion cells was increased of cells treated with RASAL2 siRNA. We further explored the mechanism and demonstrated that the down-regulated RASAL2 promoted migration and invasion via EMT induction with E-cadherin decreased expression and vimentin, N-cadherin, and Snail increased expression in NPC cells.In conclusion, RASAL2 inhibited the proliferation and metastasis capability of NPC cells.
Keywords: EMT; NPC; RASAL2; metastasis; proliferation; tumor suppressor.