Effect of low expression of NELL1 on malignant biological behavior of glioblastoma cells via FAK signaling pathway
LI Ruilin
LI Gui
SHI Yating
ZHAO Jing
Abstract：Objective To investigate whether low expression of neural epidermal growth factor-like 1(NELL1)in-fluences the malignant biological behavior of glioblastoma(GBM)cells through the focal adhesion kinase(FAK)signaling pathway.Methods Human astrocytes(SVGP12 cells)and human GBM cells(A172,U251 cells)were cultured.West-ern blotting was used to detect NELL1 protein expression in different cell types for cell selection.The selected experimen-tal cells were randomly divided into the negative control group,NELL1-knockdown group 1,and NELL1-knockdown group 2.These groups were infected with negative control lentivirus or NELL1-interfering lentiviral particles(Sh1,Sh2),respec-tively.Knockdown efficiency was verified by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction(qRT-PCR)and Western blotting.Cell proliferation was assessed by colony formation assay and CCK-8 assay.The apoptosis was detected by Annex-in V-APC/PI double staining.Cell migration was evaluated by Transwell assay.The expression of phosphorylated FAK(p-FAK)and epithelial-mesenchymal transition(EMT)-related proteins(E-cadherin,N-cadherin,and Snail)was measured by Western blotting.Results Compared with SVGP12 cells,the relative expression of NELL1 protein was higher in both A172 and U251 cells(both P<0.05).Because NELL1 expression was lower in A172 cells than in U251 cells,A172 cells were selected for subsequent experiments to ensure scientific rigor.Compared with the negative control group,the relative expression levels of NELL1 mRNA and protein were lower(both P<0.05),the number of colonies formed was smaller(both P<0.05),the optical density(OD)values at 24,48,and 72 hours of culture were lower(all P<0.05),the apopto-sis rates were higher(both P<0.05),the number of transmembrane cells was smaller(both P<0.05),and the protein ex-pression of p-FAK,E-cadherin,N-cadherin,and Snail was lower in the NELL1-knockdown groups 1 and 2(all P<0.05).Conclusion Knockdown of NELL1 may inhibit the proliferation and migration of GBM cells and induce apoptosis,poten-tially by regulating the FAK signaling pathway to promote EMT.
Keywords：glioblastomaneural epidermal growth factor-like 1focal adhesion kinase signaling pathwayepitheli-al-mesenchymal transitioncell proliferationcell migrationapoptosis
Publication Date：2026-02-25
Online Publishing Date：2026-03-19(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：5( 44-47,52 )