Extracellular matrix protein ITGBL1 promotes ovarian cancer cell migration and adhesion through Wnt/PCP signaling and FAK/SRC pathway.

Despite the advances in cancer treatment and the progresses in tumor biological, ovarian cancer remains a bad situation. In current study, we found a novel extracellular matrix protein, ITGBL1, which is highly expressed in ovarian cancer tissues by immunohistochemistry examination. The expression pattern of ITGBL1 in malignant tissues inspired us to investigate its role in ovarian cancer progression. Both loss- and gain-function assays revealed that ITGBL1 could promote ovarian cancer cell migration and adhesion. As it's a secreted protein, we further used recombinant ITGBL1 protein treated cancer cells and found that ITGBL1 promotes cell migration and adhesion in a concentration dependent manner. Furthermore, we found that ITGBL1 not only influences the activity of Wnt/PCP signaling but also affects FAK/src pathway in vitro. Taken together, our results suggest that highly expressed ITGBL1 could promotes cancer cell migration and adhesion in ovarian cancer and as a secreted protein, ITGBL1 might be a novel biomarker for ovarian cancer diagnosis.