Moesin is a member of the ERM (ezrin, radixin and moesin) proteins that participate in cell migration and tumor invasion through transductional signals sent to actin filaments by glycoproteins, such as podoplanin.
Taken together, our findings suggest that radixin is involved in GBM cell migration and invasion, and implicate TSP-1, E-cadherin and MMP9 as metastasis-inducing factors.
Instead, we found that miR-200b repressed several actin-associated genes, with the knockdown of the ezrin-radixin-moesin family member moesin alone phenocopying the repression of cell invasion by miR-200b.
In vitro cell migration and invasion studies showed that either ezrin, radixin or moesin specific deficiency in the cells caused the substantial reduction of the cell migration and invasion.
We show here that short hairpin RNA-mediated concurrent downregulation of ITGA5, RDX, and RhoA is sufficient to phenocopy the full spectrum of described influences of miR-31 on metastasis in vivo, including the effects of this microRNA (miRNA) on local invasion, early post-intravasation events, and metastatic colonization.