Focal Adhesion Kinase and β-Catenin Cooperate to Induce Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

ABSTRACT: There is an urgent need to understand the molecular signaling pathways that drive or mediate the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The focal adhesion kinase (FAK) gene protein tyrosine kinase 2 is amplified in 16.4% of The Cancer Genome Atlas HCC specimens, and its amplification leads to increased FAK mRNA expression. It is not known whether the overexpression of FAK alone is sufficient to induce HCC or whether it must cooperate in some ways with other oncogenes. In this study, we found that 34.8% of human HCC samples with FAK amplification also show β-catenin mutations, suggesting a co-occurrence of FAK overexpression and β-catenin mutations in HCC. We overexpressed FAK alone, constitutively active forms of β-catenin (CAT) alone, or a combination of FAK and CAT in the livers

SUBMITTER: Shang N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6819211 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature