Lung cancer is the leading cause of
cancer death in the world and
metastasis is an essential aspect of
lung cancer progression. ITGB8 has been implicated in
metastasis of human
tumors. However, the molecular mechanism by which ITGB8 is involved in
tumor metastasis is still unclear. In this study, we compared the gene expression profiles of human
lung cancer cell lines A549 and PC9 by ITGB8 gene silencing with that of parent cells and negative control cells to comprehensively investigate ITGB8-mediated changes with respect to the metastatic potential and gene expression of human
lung cancer cell lines. Our results showed that ITGB8 silencing cells exhibited significant cell cycle arrest and less adhesion and invasion abilities. We confirmed by Western blot, ELISA, and real-time PCR that the expression of
metastasis-related genes CXCL1, CXCL2, CXCL5, MMP-2, and MMP-9 were significantly decreased while that of
E-Cadherin and
cystatin B were dramatically increased in A549- and PC9-ITGB8 silencing cells. Furthermore, silencing of ITGB8 caused Snail and NF-κB transcriptional activation, and
MEK and Akt phosphorylation level changes in
lung cancer cell lines. Our results indicated that ITGB8 may play an important role in
metastasis of human
lung cancer cells. The ITGB8 silencing may change the
lung cancer cells to a less invasive phenotype through alteration in the expression of
metastasis-related genes.