Abstract: Objective To investigate theeffect of netropsin on migration and invasion ability of gastric cancer cells and its mechanisms. Methods To determine if netropsin inhibits migration and invasion of gastric cancer cells, Transwell migration and invasion assay was performed. Then Western blot was performed to detect expression of E-cadherin and vimentin in gastric cancer cells with or without presence in medium netropsin. Finally,immunofluorescence was performed to detect changes in the cellular localization of β-catenin to validate whether Wnt/β-catenin pathway was suppressed or not.Results Netropsinwith the concentration of 25 μmol/L had minimal inhibition effect on cell proliferation and was able to suppress ability of migration and invasion by inhibitingEMT in gastric cancer cells(P＜0.05).Meanwhile netropsin was able to down-regulated the expression of epithelial markers E-cadherin and up-regulated the expression of mesenchymal marker vimentin. Finally, immunofluorescence showed that netropsin was able to block translocation of β-catenin from cytoplasm to nuclear.Conclusions Netropsin can inhibit EMT thereby suppressing migration and invasion of gastric cancer cells.The mechanism is that netropsin can compete with HMGA2 for transcription factor binding site thereby suppressing the Wnt/β-catenin pathway.

Key words: gastric carcinoma, epithelial-mesenchymal transitions(EMT), netropsin