Nidogen 1 regulates proliferation and migration/invasion in murine claudin-low mammary tumor cells.

Nidogen 1 (NID1) is a glycoprotein found in basement membranes involved in cross-linking collagen IV and laminin. The role of NID in breast cancer has only been evaluated in a small number of studies and the findings of these studies have been inconsistent. Our previous work revealed that highly tumorigenic murine mammary tumor cells express high levels of while weakly tumorigenic mammary tumor cells express low levels of . To investigate Nid1, two stable knockdown lines were created, and knockdown was confirmed at both the mRNA and protein level. knockdown significantly reduced cell proliferation and migration/invasion and these reductions in proliferation and migration/invasion could be rescued by conditioned media containing NID1 protein. The reduced migration/invasion observed in the knockdown cells was not associated with significant alterations in the epithelial gene or the mesenchymal genes and . Therefore, suppression of Nid1 expression reduces proliferation and migration/invasion in claudin-low murine mammary tumor cells.