Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the leading cause of cancer-related death among all the gynecological malignancies of the female genital system, and its incidence and mortality rates continue to rise. B-cell translocation gene 3 (BTG3) plays an important role in the occurrence and development of numerous cancers. However, the role of BTG3 in EOC remains poorly understood. In this study, we aimed to investigate the biological role and potential molecular mechanism of BTG3 in EOC. We found that BTG3 protein expression was significantly lower in human EOC cell lines. Next, BTG3 upregulation by transfection with pcDNA3.1-BTG inhibited cell proliferation and invasion but promoted cell apoptosis in 2 human EOC cell lines, SKOV-3 and HO-8910 cells. In addition, BTG3 knockdown by small interfering RNA promoted cell proliferation and invasion, but inhibited cell apoptosis in 2 human EOC cell lines, SKOV-3 and HO-8910 cells. Importantly, several proteins, including phosphorylation serine/threonine kinase (p-AKT), phosphorylated glycogen synthase kinase 3β (p-GSK3β), and β-catenin, were markedly decreased by BTG3 upregulation, whereas increased by BTG3 knockdown. Taken together, the results of our study suggest that BTG3 overexpression could inhibit cell proliferation and invasion and promotes cell apoptosis in EOC cell, possibly by regulating the AKT/GSK3β/β-catenin signaling pathway, providing novel insights into the treatment of EOC through BTG3 overexpression.
Keywords: AKT/GSK3β/β-catenin signaling; BTG3; epithelial ovarian cancer; proliferation and invasion.