Wls promotes the proliferation of breast cancer cells via Wnt signaling.

The Wnt secretion protein Wntless (Wls)/GPR177 has been reported to be involved in the development of several human cancers. However, the biological significance of Wls in breast cancer progression has not been clarified. In this study, we show for the first time that Wls is an important molecule related to breast cancer. We find that Wls expression is markedly increased in clinical breast tumors compared with adjacent noncancerous tissues. Downregulation of Wls by short-hairpin RNA severely suppressed the proliferation of breast cancer cells. Wls is a core Wnt signaling component, and we show that knockdown of Wls is sufficient to inhibit Wnt secretion and its downstream signaling. Taken together, these results indicate that Wls contributes to the proliferation of breast cancer cells by regulating Wnt signaling. Therefore, Wls could be a novel therapeutic target for inhibiting cell growth in breast cancer.