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An Actin-Binding Protein Girdin Regulates the Motility of Breast Cancer Cells

¹ Department of Pathology and ² Division of Molecular Pathology, Center for Neurological Disease and Cancer, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine; ³ Institute for Advanced Research, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan

Requests for reprints: Masahide Takahashi, Department of Pathology, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, 65 Tsurumai-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya 466-8550, Japan. Phone: 81-52-744-2093; Fax: 81-52-744-2098; E-mail: mtakaha{at}med.nagoya-u.ac.jp.

Key Words: Akt • Girdin/Ccdc88a • cell migration • cell invasion • metastasis

Girdin (girders of actin filaments) is a novel actin-binding Akt substrate that plays an important role in actin organization and Akt-dependent cell motility in fibroblasts. Here, we find that Girdin is expressed in a variety of cancer cell lines, including the breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231, and is phosphorylated by the stimulation of insulin-like growth factor (IGF-I). In vitro migration and invasion assays showed that Girdin is required for the IGF-I–dependent cell movement of MDA-MB-231 cells. Short hairpin interfering RNA directed against Girdin markedly inhibited the metastasis of s.c. transplanted MDA-MB-231 cells in nude mice. In addition, Girdin is highly expressed in a variety of human malignant tissues, including breast, colon, lung, and uterine cervical carcinomas. These findings highlight the important role of Girdin in tumor progression in which the Akt signaling pathway is aberrantly activated. [Cancer Res 2008;68(5):1310–8]