Adhesion Proteins Profile and Localization in Ovarian Carcinoma Cell Lines

The three-dimensional structure of tumor tissue and particularly cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix adhesion is an important factor that can determine the phenotype of tumor cells. In this work, we have investigated the abundance profile of actin-binding adhesion proteins in human ovarian adenocarcinoma cell lines SKOV-3 and SKOV-3.ip. We have investigated levels of total and superficially localized adherens junctions proteins E- and N-cadherin, gap junction protein сonnexin-43 and cell-extracellular matrix contacting integrin beta-1. Our results indicate a complete absence of epithelial marker E-cadherin, a low level of mesenchymal N-cadherin and high levels of connexin-43 and integrin beta-1. Modest superficial localization of the represented proteins was observed, indicating their mislocalization. SKOV-3 cell line was characterized by higher levels of the total content of studied cell-cell contacts proteins and a lower level of superficially localized integrin beta-1, which is both considered to be associated with lower tumor aggressiveness. The revealed differences in the profile of adhesion proteins are in line with the accepted view on SKOV-3.ip cell line having a more aggressive phenotype than that of SKOV-3. The revealed features of the total abundance of the adhesion proteins and their superficially localized pool made it possible to supplement the information on the nature of phenotypic differences between the studied cell lines.