Our findings reveal an unexpectedly widespread and direct role for FRA1 in control of epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity in CRC cells, and suggest that FRA1 plays an important role in mediating cross talk between oncogenic RAS-ERK and TGFβ signaling networks during tumor progression.
We propose that FRA-1-overexpressing clones featuring high plasticity undergo positive selection during consecutive stages of multistep tumour progression.
The expression of Fra-1 (Fos related antigen 1) involves tumor progression and invasion, and its gene ablation could suppress the invasive phenotypes of human tumor cells.