Abstract 201: Morphological changes to the vulvar squamous carcinoma cell line, A431, resulting from clobetasol-induced upregulation of vimentin

Abstract

Abstract Vimentin is recognized as an important marker in the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of several cancer cell types. The overexpression of vimentin appears to coincide with increased tumor growth, migration, and poor prognosis. The vulvar cancer cell line, A431, is of squamous cell origin and displays hallmarks of a squamous cell including expression of cytokeratins 8 and 18 as well as E- and P-cadherin. We have found that treatment of A431 cells with the glucocorticoid, clobetasol, results in upregulation of vimentin which is accompanied by change to a more mesenchymal-like morphology. Despite this change in morphology, the cells continue to express cytokeratins 8 and 18. This suggests that the vimentin has a greater impact on cell morphology than does cytokeratins 8 and 18. However, we previously reported that the analogous glucocorticoid, dexamethasone, also downregulates E- and P-cadherin in these cells which may account for the observed change in morphology. Here we examine more closely the impact of vimentin on cellular morphology in the clobetasol treated A431 cells by both immunofluorescence microscopy and Raman imaging. Citation Format: Jani E. Lewis, Kia Haering, Kazushige Yokoyama. Morphological changes to the vulvar squamous carcinoma cell line, A431, resulting from clobetasol-induced upregulation of vimentin [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(6_Suppl):Abstract nr 201.