| Background and aimCaveolae are 50- to 100-nm omega-shaped invaginations of the plasma membrane that function as regulators of signal transduction. Caveolin-1 is a kind of oligomeric structural protein that is both necessary and sufficient for caveolae formation. Currently, the functional roles attributed to caveolin-1 are quite diverse, ranging from vesicular transport (transcytosis, endocytosis, and potocytosis) and cholesterol homeostasis, to the suppression of cell transformation and the regulation of signal transduction.Many results indicate that caveolin-1 is expressed in almost all the normal cells, but in some forms of cancer such as breast cancer cells caveolin-1 expression is downregulated, even no expression. Previous research showed overexpression of caveolin-1 in caveolin-negative cells, growth and soft transformation ability was decreased, antise suppression of caveolin-1 expression in caveolin-positive cells led to cells transformation. These results indicate that caveolin-1 is a growth-inhibitory protein that may act as a tumor-suppressor. However, this idea is inconsistent with the fact that caveolin-1 is highly expressed in prostate cancer cell lines. The expression of caveolin-1 is positively correlated with the tumor cell grade and its progression stage. So it is very important and necessary to investigate biological functions of caveolin-1 in different tumour cells.Currently, there were few articles about the effects of caveolin-1 on Hepatocacinoma cell lines in tumour metastasis aspects. Previous work in our lab showed caveolin-1 expression levels were higher in Hca-F cells than Hca-P and Hepa1-6 cells which have character of high lymphatic... |
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