Disruption of STAT3 signaling leads to tumor cell invasion through alterations of homotypic cell-cell adhesion complexes

Christine Rivat, Olivier De Wever, Erik Bruyneel, Marc Mareel, Christian Gespach, Samir Attoub

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

41 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

STAT3 is frequently overexpressed and constitutively activated by tyrosine phosphorylation during malignant transformation. Despite the clear importance of STAT3 in cell proliferation and survival in diverse human cancers, its possible contribution to tumor cell adhesion, motility and invasion remains hypothetical. We therefore compared the transforming properties of STAT3wt, its constitutively activated dimeric form STAT3C, and the dominant negative mutant STAT3-Y705F in human colorectal HCT8/S11 cancer cells. Both STAT3wt and STAT3C exert a permissive action to the proinvasive activity of the scatter factor HGF in HCT8/S11 cells. In contrast, the monomeric and cytoplasmic mutant Y705F induces a constitutive invasive phenotype through Wnt/Rho-independent and EGFR/PI3-kinase-dependent pathways. Accordingly, Y705F decreases cell-cell homotypic adhesions, and increases cell motility and scattering, as well as lamellipodia-type cellular extensions. STAT3-Y705F-transfected HCT8/S11 cells display an increased tyrosine phosphorylation of the cell-cell adhesion regulator β-catenin and its dissociation from the invasion suppressor E-cadherin at cell-cell contacts. Our data imply that both invasion promoter and repressor genes are controlled by the canonical STAT3 transcription pathways. Disruption of this cascade by Y705F reveals the proinvasive potential of altered forms of STAT3 as a persistent signaling adaptor in cytokine/transforming growth factor receptor scaffolds and oncogenic pathways.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3317-3327
Number of pages11
JournalOncogene
Volume23
Issue number19
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 22 2004
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • E-cadherin tumor suppressor gene
  • EGF-R
  • PI3-kinase
  • Rho GTPases
  • Wnt pathway
  • β-catenin

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Molecular Biology
  • Genetics
  • Cancer Research

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