The involvement of JAK-STAT3 in cell motility, invasion, and metastasis

Abstract

JAK-STAT3 signaling, while regulating many aspects of cancer development and progression, promotes invasion and metastasis through activation of key metastasis promoting genes such as WASF3. STAT3 promotes WASF3 expression and JAK2 independently activates it, which is required for invasion. JAK-STAT3 signaling is dependent on WASF3 function, since its inactivation in cells expressing JAK-STAT3 suppresses invasion. WASF3 overexpression leads to activation of NFκB and ZEB1 which also promote invasion through regulation of target genes involved in metastasis. NFκB frequently cooperates with STAT3 to upregulate metastasis promoting genes such as matrix metalloproteinases and cytokines, as well as to suppress microRNAs which can suppresses invasion. This better understanding of the complex role played by JAK-STAT3 in the regulation of cell movement, invasion, and metastasis provides opportunities to suppress this lethal aspect of cancer progression by not only targeting the JAK and STAT3 proteins directly, but also some of the downstream effectors of JAK-STAT3 signaling.

Keywords: JAK2; STAT3; WASF3; cancer; invasion; metastasis; motility.

Figure 1. Summary of the IL-6/JAK-STAT interaction with the WASF3 gene. Activation of STAT3 leads to increased expression of WASF3 which is then recruited to the membrane where it is activated by JAK2 to promote invasion.