The mechanism and significance of synergistic induction of the expression of plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 by glucocorticoid and transforming growth factor beta in human ovarian cancer cells

• We found TGF-β and DEX rapidly synergistically up-regulate the expression of PAI-1 in ovarian cancer cell lines.
• TGF-β-activated p38MAPK and ERK enhanced DEX-induced GR phosphorylation at Ser211 to augment the expression of PAI-1.
• Synergistic induction of PAI-1 expression by TGF-β and DEX contributed to the early pro-adhesion effects.

Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) plays a key role in tissue remodeling and tumor development by suppression of plasminogen activator function. Glucocorticoids (GCs) and transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) signal pathways cross-talk to regulate gene expression, but the mechanism is poorly understood. Here we investigated the mechanism and significance of co-regulation of PAI-1 by TGF-β and dexamethasone (DEX), a synthetic glucocorticoid in ovarian cancer cells. We found that TGF-β and DEX showed rapidly synergistic induction of PAI-1 expression, which contributed to the early pro-adhesion effects. The synergistic induction effect was accomplished by several signal pathways, including GC receptor (GR) pathway and TGF-β-activated p38MAPK, ERK and Smad3 pathways. TGF-β-activated p38MAPK and ERK pathways cross-talked with GR pathway to augment the expression of PAI-1 through enhancing DEX-induced GR phosphorylation at Ser211 in ovarian cancer cells. These findings reveal possible novel mechanisms by which TGF-β pathways cooperatively cross-talk with GR pathway to regulate gene expression.