β4 integrin and focal adhesion kinase (FAK) are often associated with a poor prognosis in cancer patients, and their signaling events have recently been linked to malignant outcomes. Here, we demonstrate, for the first time, physical and functional interactions between β4 integrin and FAK that influence breast cancer malignancy. An amino-terminal linker within FAK is essential for its binding w...

UNLABELLED The development of human malignancies can involve the aberrant regulation of intracellular signal transduction pathways that regulate cell-extracellular matrix interactions. PURPOSE In the current study, we aimed to evaluate focal adhesion kinase (FAK) at both genetic and protein expression levels in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) and to explore the prognostic signi...

The focal adhesion kinase p125(Fak) is a widely expressed cytosolic tyrosine kinase, which is involved in integrin signaling and in signal transduction of a number of growth factors. In contrast to tyrosine kinase receptors such as the platelet-derived growth factor and the hepatocyte growth factor receptors, which induce p125(Fak) phosphorylation, insulin has been shown to promote its dephosph...

The present study aimed to investigate the correlation between matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) expression and activation of the focal adhesion kinase (FAK) signaling pathway in herpes stromal keratitis (HSK). The cornea of 24 BALB/c mice was infected with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) to construct a model of HSK. Six additional mice served as negative controls. Immunohistochemical stai...

Focal adhesion kinase (FAK) is a major drug target in cancer and current inhibitors targeted to the ATP-binding pocket of the kinase domain have entered clinical trials. However, preliminary results have shown limited single-agent efficacy in patients. Despite these unfavorable data, the molecular mechanisms that drive intrinsic and acquired resistance to FAK-kinase inhibitors are largely unkno...

Focal adhesion kinase (FAK) is essential for vascular development as endothelial cell (EC)-specific knockout of FAK (conditional FAK knockout [CFKO] mice) leads to embryonic lethality. In this study, we report the differential kinase-independent and -dependent functions of FAK in vascular development by creating and analyzing an EC-specific FAK kinase-defective (KD) mutant knockin (conditional ...

Although an elevated level of focal adhesion kinase (FAK) has been observed in a variety of invasive human tumors, forced expression of FAK alone in cultured cells does not cause them to exhibit transformed phenotypes. Therefore, the role of FAK in oncogenic transformation remains unclear. In this study, we have demonstrated that FAK overexpression in Madin-Darby canine kidney epithelial cells ...

BACKGROUND Flow-induced regulation of endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) depends on integrin signaling and tyrosine kinase activation. Integrins cluster in focal adhesion complexes, where the extracellular matrix is connected to the cytoskeleton and where focal adhesion kinase (FAK) is located. FAK plays a central role in integrin signaling and Src activation. Accordingly, we hypothesized that FAK ...

This study examined whether focal adhesion kinase (FAK) plays a role in the differentiation of C(2)C(12) myoblasts into myotubes. Differentiation of C(2)C(12) myoblasts induced by switch to differentiation culture medium was accompanied by a transient reduction of FAK phosphorylation at Tyr-397 (to approximately 50%, at 1 and 2 h), followed by an increase thereafter (to 240% up to 5 days), alth...

Focal adhesion kinase (FAK) has an anti-apoptotic role in anchorage-dependent cells via an unknown mechanism. To elucidate the role of FAK in anti-apoptosis, we have established several FAK cDNA-transfected HL-60 cell lines and examined whether FAK-transfected cells have resistance to apoptotic stimuli. FAK-transfected HL-60 (HL-60/FAK) cells were highly resistant to apoptosis induced with hydr...