The interaction between tumor cells and the stroma environment has crucial effects on tumor cell invasive behavior. As a major component of the stroma, collagen plays a key role on cellular adhesion and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Recently, we found that collagen type I is significantly up-regulated in gastric cancer tissues compared with their adjacent non-neoplastic tissues. However, whether collagen type I contributes to gastric cancer invasion and metastasis is not clear. Herein we show that, collagen type I induces cell scattering and cytoskeleton rearrangement, prompts cell migration and proliferation, which indicates that collagen type I is involved in promoting gastric cancer invasion and metastasis. Collagen type I is able to reduce cell-cell adhesion and enhance migration by inducing disassembly of the E-cadherin/catenin complex in gastric carcinoma cells, which is related to tyrosine phosphorylation of β-catenin. Tyrosine phosphorylation of β-catenin dissociates it from E-cadherin and actin cytoskeleton and facilitates its entry into the nucleus, where β-catenin acts as a transcriptional activator inducing genes involved in cell proliferation. In conclusion, collagen type I contributes to invasion and metastasis by regulating β-catenin tyrosine phosphorylation and nuclear translocation to promote migration and proliferation of gastric carcinoma cells.

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