Focal adhesion kinase N-terminus in breast carcinoma cells induces rounding, detachment and apoptosis. (original) (raw)

Biochem J. 2003 Jul 1; 373(Pt 1): 201–210.

Department of Surgery, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA.

Abstract

Focal adhesion kinase (FAK) has a central role in adhesion-mediated cell signalling. The N-terminus of FAK is thought to function as a docking site for a number of proteins, including the Src-family tyrosine kinases. In the present study, we disrupted FAK signalling by expressing the N-terminal domain of FAK (FAK-NT) in human breast carcinoma cells, BT474 and MCF-7 lines, and non-malignant epithelial cells, MCF-10A line. Expression of FAK-NT led to rounding, detachment and apoptosis in human breast cancer cells. Apoptosis was accompanied by dephosphorylation of FAK Tyr(397), degradation of the endogenous FAK protein and activation of caspase-3. Over-expression of FAK rescued FAK-NT-mediated cellular rounding. Expression of FAK-NT in non-malignant breast epithelial cells did not lead to rounding, loss of FAK phosphorylation or apoptosis. Thus FAK-NT contributes to cellular adhesion and survival pathways in breast cancer cells which are not required for survival in non-malignant breast epithelial cells.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (339K).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.


Articles from Biochemical Journal are provided here courtesy of The Biochemical Society