Restraint of FAM60A has a cancer-inhibiting role in pancreatic carcinoma via the effects on the Akt/GSK-3β/β-catenin signaling pathway

Family with sequence similarity 60A (FAM60A) has been reported as a new cancer-related protein that affects the malignant progression of some cancers. However, whether FAM60A plays a part in pancreatic carcinoma is undetermined. This work was designed to examine the impact of FAM60A in pancreatic carcinoma. Abundant expression of FAM60A was observed in the primary tumor tissue of pancreatic carcinoma. Moreover, a high FAM60A level was related to a poor overall survival in pancreatic carcinoma patients. Malignant behaviors of pancreatic carcinoma cells, such as proliferation and invasiveness, were markedly affected by FAM60A depletion. In addition, FAM60A depletion enhanced the drug sensitivity of pancreatic carcinoma cells to gemcitabine. Further study revealed that FAM60A depletion impaired the activities of Akt and beta-catenin. Inhibiting the activity of Akt abolished FAM60A-mediated beta-catenin activation. Re-expression of beta-catenin partially diminished the FAM60A-depletion-mediated cancer suppressive effect in pancreatic carcinoma cells. In vivo experiments demonstrated that FAM60A depletion prohibited the xenograft formation of pancreatic carcinoma cells, with concurrent reductions of Akt and beta-catenin activities. Collectively, our findings indicate that FAM60A exerts a cancer-promoting role in pancreatic carcinoma through affection of the Akt/beta-catenin pathway. This work indicates that FAM60A acts as a tumor promoter in pancreatic carcinoma and can be utilized as a potential target for anti-pancreatic carcinoma therapy development.