Enhanced expression of caveolin-1 possesses diagnostic and prognostic value and promotes cell migration, invasion and sunitinib resistance in the clear cell renal cell carcinoma

•CAV1 serves as a potential diagnostic and prognostic molecular marker in ccRCC.•CAV1 expression is elevated in the parental and sunitinib-resistance ccRCC cells.•CAV1 overexpression promotes sunitinib resistance in ccRCC.•CAV1 promotes migration and invasion in ccRCC cells.

Caveolin-1 (CAV1) has been identified to be up-regulated in many cancers, including clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). However, its potential function is still unclear in ccRCC. In this study, we demonstrated that CAV1 was frequently overexpressed in renal cell carcinoma tissues and cells, and was significantly associated with various clinicopathological parameters. In addition, high CAV1 expression was associated with poor disease-free survival (DFS) rate and could serve as a useful diagnostic indicator in ccRCC patients with different clinicopathological stages. Functional experiments demonstrated that CAV1 knockdown inhibited cell migration and invasion, whereas overexpression of CAV1 promoted cell migration and invasion in ccRCC. Moreover, CAV1 expression was up-regulated in sunitinib-resistant renal cancer cell lines, and its overexpression promoted sunitinib resistance. In general, our results confirm that CAV1 plays an important role in the metastasis of kidney cancer and induces sunitinib resistance, so CAV1 function suppression may become a promising clinical treatment strategy during renal cell carcinoma metastasis and sunitinib resistance.