NRSN 2 promotes melanoma cell proliferation through PI 3 K / Akt / GLI pathway

Neurensin-2 (NRSN2), a small neuronal membrane protein, is mainly localized in small vesicles and reported in nervous system. It remains largely unknown to the role of NRSN2 in cancer progression. In current study, we screened the published database and found that NRSN2 is highly expressed in melanoma. To confirm it, the levels of NRSN2 in eighteen fresh Melanoma and adjacent tissues were detected. We found that NRSN2 is significantly expressed in melanoma tissues. We further investigated the cellular function of NRSN2 through gain and loss of function experiments, which suggests that NRSN2 promotes cell growth. Furthermore, our data obtained from western blot and CCK-8 assays show that NRSN2 could activate glioma-associated (GLI) and Akt, thereby affecting cells viabilities. In conclusion, our findings demonstrate NRSN2 is highly expressed in melanoma tissues and the overexpression NRSN2 promotes melanoma cells proliferation partly through PI3K/Akt/GLI pathway.