RON (recepteur d’origine nantais) expression and its association with tumor progression in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

Several human tumor tissues show an aberrant expression and activation of recepteur d'origine nantais (RON). In this paper, we investigate the expression of RON in human laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and evaluate whether RON affects the tumor cell progression in human laryngeal SCC cell line. Immunohistochemistry was used to assess RON expression in human laryngeal SCC. To evaluate the impact of RON knockdown, the cell invasion assay and cell migration assay using small-interfering RNA were performed. The expression of RON protein was dominantly observed in laryngeal SCC tissues relative to adjacent normal mucosa in all cases. Knockdown of RON resulted in significantly reduced cell invasion in human laryngeal SCC cells. Cell migration showed a marked decrease in RON knockdown laryngeal SCC cells compared to the negative control laryngeal SCC cells. Laryngeal SCC cell migration was enhanced by incubation with macrophage stimulating protein (MSP). RON is highly expressed in human laryngeal SCC. We suggest that RON plays an important role in invasion, and metastasis of laryngeal SCC.