Frequent nuclear beta-catenin accumulation and associated mutations in endometrioid-type endometrial and ovarian carcinomas with squamous differentiation.
We studied nine single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located in CTNNB1 (β-catenin) [rs4533622, rs2953], APC (rs11954856, rs351771, rs459552), and AXIN2 (rs4074947, rs7224837, rs3923087, rs2240308) in women with ovarian cancer without BRCA1/BRCA2 mutations (n = 228) and controls (n = 282).
To summarize, the results of this study suggest that beta-catenin mutations and MI could represent two independent pathways in endometrioid ovarian carcinomas because they occur simultaneously very infrequently (in 5% of these cases). beta-catenin mutations are always associated with a nuclear beta-catenin expression pattern, whereas cases with a replication error -plus phenotype showed no abnormal beta-catenin subcellular localization.
Both nuclear and cytoplasmic beta-catenin expressions were demonstrated in 4 of the 27 ovarian carcinomas for which tissue samples were available for examination.
Protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor type R (PTPRR) antagonizes the Wnt signaling pathway in ovarian cancer by dephosphorylating and inactivating β-catenin.
Taken together, this study showed that Annexin A2 inhibition suppresses proliferation and invasion in ovarian cancer via β-catenin/EMT, proposing the potential role of Annexin A2 in the prevention and treatment of ovarian cancer.
Glutamine-fructose-6-phosphate transaminase 2 (GFPT2) promotes the EMT of serous ovarian cancer by activating the hexosamine biosynthetic pathway to increase the nuclear location of β-catenin.
Collectively, our results suggested for the first time that NGF is functionally linked to β-catenin in the migration of human ovarian cancer cells, which may be a novel therapeutic perspective to prevent the spread of ovarian carcinomas by studying the interaction between NGF/NGFRs and canonical WNT/β-catenin signaling.
These results uncover β-catenin as a critical factor in promoting ovarian cancer aggressiveness and a new mechanism linking between β-catenin and miRNA downregulation underlying this process.