Fascin1 promotes gastric cancer progression by facilitatingcell migrationand epithelial-mesenchymal transition

Background: Fascin1 regulates cell motility, migration and invasion. Abnormal fascin1 expression has been implicated in a variety of cancers. In this study, we measured fascin1 expression in gastric cancer tissues from 80 gastric cancer patients, and assessed the correlation of fascin1 expression with a series of clinicopathologic gastric cancer parameters.We also verified the results with 4 gastric cancer cell lines in subsequent in vitro studies. Methods: We measured mRNA expression of fascin1 with RT-qPCR, and measured protein expressions of fascin1 and EMT markers with western blot in gastric cancer cells. Additionally, we used RT-qPCR to assess fascin1 expression in gastric cancer tissues and adjacent normal tissue.Transwell assay was used for cell migration. Xenograft was established by subcutaneous injection of Fascin1 knockdown gastric cancer cells. Results: Fascin1 expression was greater in gastric cancer cell lines compared to normal cells and the expression increased with decreasing cell differentiation. In addition, fascin1 expression was significantly different between gastric cancer tissue and adjacent normal tissue. Fascin1 positivity was higher in poorly differentiated carcinomas compared to moderately and highly differentiated carcinomas. The fascin1 expression was associated with differentiation, tumor size, lymph node status, distant metastasis and TNM stage, but not patient age and sex. Fascin1 expression in gastric carcinoma cells and tissues is significantly higher than in normal gastric mucosa and adjacent tissue to cancerous tissues, and it increases as cancer cell differentiation decreases. Furthermore, fascin1 expression regulates gastric cancer cell migration, expressions of EMT markers and transcription factors as well as xenograft tumor formation. Conclusion: Fascin1 is related with clinicopathologic parameters of gastric cancer and overexpressed both in gastric cell lines and gastric tumor tissue. Knockdown of Fascin1 inhibited gastric cancer cell migration and EMT markers expression.