Suppression of carbonic anhydrase IX leads to aberrant focal adhesion and decreased invasion of tumor cells

Carbonic anhydrase IX (CA IX) is a well-recognized hypoxia marker with promising diagnostic and therapeutic value. CA IX regulates the pH in hypoxic tumor cells and, thereby, contributes to microenvironmental acidosis and cell migration. To gain a better insight into the molecular processes driven by CA IX, we performed gene expression profiling of HT-1080 fibrosarcoma cells subjected to CA IX depletion by shRNA silencing. We identified the focal adhesion pathway as being significantly inhibited in the absence of CA IX and confirmed this finding by functional assays. Thus, we obtained the first direct evidence for the role of CA IX in focal adhesion.