Discussion In this study, we show that knockdown of GRP78 reduces the invasiveness and metastasis in hepatocellular carcinoma cells SMMC7721, and we identify a molecular mechanism involving

FAK-Src-JNK-c-Jun-MMP2 signaling pathway in these effects. These data point to a potential antitumor target for GRP78 in hepatocellular carcinoma cells. We choose hepatocellular carcinoma cell line SMMC7721 for the establishment of in vitro invasion and metastasis model according to the see more expression levels of GRP78, MMP-2, MMP-9, MMP-14 and TIMP-2. We first demonstrate that knockdown of GRP78 inhibited the invasion and metastasis in SMMC7721. Many data have revealed that cell proliferation affected the outcomes of both transwell assay and wound healing assay, it is essential to examine whether GRP78 knockdown CHIR98014 order affected the proliferation of SMMC7721. In our research, we demonstrated that GRP78 knockdown do not have influence on tumor cells at the first 24 h. Taken together, these results suggested that knockdown of GRP78 decreased the invasion and metastasis of SMMC7721 and

this inhibitory effect was not dependent on the proliferation of tumor cells. Abnormal expression of MMPs is believed to play an important role in tumor cell invasion and metastasis in human cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma [23].Among the MMPs, the roles of MMP-2 and MMP-9 in the invasiveness and metastasis of AZD2014 mw cancer cells are well characterized. In our study, we show that GRP78 knockdown reduced the expression and activity of Pyruvate dehydrogenase MMP-2 in SMMC7721 cells. Although we detected MMP-9 expression

by RT-PCR and western blot, we do not detect the secretion and activity of MMP-9 in SMMC7721. To elucidated this question, we examined the activities of MMP-9 in four hepatocellular carcinoma tissue samples by gelatin zymograph assay. MMP9 activities can be detected in all the four tissue samples. Since tissue samples are composed of cancer cells and surrounding non-cancer cells,which is the components of tumor microenvironment, we think that MMP-9 is secreted mainly by the non-cancer cell in tumor microenvironment. Many data have demonstrated that MMP-14 and TIMP-2 activates pro-MMP-2 by forming a complex with TIMP-2 and pro-MMP-2. We found that GRP78 knockdown reduced the expression of MMP-14 and TIMP-2, indicating that knockdown of GRP78 decreased the expression of the members of the MMP-2 activating complex. In this article, we further investigate the signaling mechanisms involved in the reduced MMP-2 and MMP-9 activities. Mitogen-activated protein kinases(MAPKs) are key signaling molecules controlling MMPs which is modulated large part by FAK-Src signaling pathway. We found that knockdown of GRP78 decreased the phosphorylation of JNK and ERK1/2. This is supported by our results that GRP78 knockdown downregulated the activity of FAK and Src. AP-1 complex which consists of c-Jun and c-fos plays important roles in several cellular processes.