Signaling and regulatory mechanisms of integrin alphavbeta6 on the apoptosis of colon cancer cells.

Considerable researches have been done about integrin alphanubeta6 and carcinomas, but little information has been shown about the relationship between integrin alphanubeta6 and apoptosis. In this study, we investigated the apoptosis and its related signal pathways to integrin alphavbeta6 in colon cancer cells. After we blocked the function of integrin alphavbeta6 in HT29 cells used the monoclonal antibody, the apoptotic cells increased markedly. Meanwhile, cytochrome C released from mitochondria into cytosol, Bcl-2 decreased while Bax increased significantly, and Fas and Fas-ligand had no change. The activities of caspase-3 and caspase-9 increased, while caspase-8 remained no change. Moreover, the expression of phosphorylated extracellular signal-related kinase (P-ERK) decreased. We confirmed that integrin alphavbeta6 acted as an important role in inhibiting apoptosis in colon cancer cells, and the signaling involved the mitochondrial pathway.