Activation of the formylpeptide receptor (FPR), a G-protein-coupled receptor, by its chemotactic peptide ligand N-formylmethionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine (fMLF) promotes the directional migration and survival of human glioblastoma cells. fMLF also stimulates glioblastoma cells to produce biologically active VEGF, an important angiogenic factor involved in tumor progression.
Epidermal growth factor module-containing mucin-like receptor 2 is a newly identified adhesion G protein-coupled receptor associated with poor overall survival and an invasive phenotype in glioblastoma.
Collectively, these findings implicate a Rap1A/β1 integrin pathway, activated downstream of G-protein-coupled receptor stimulation and RhoA, in glioblastoma cell proliferation.
This establishes a role for dopamine receptor signaling via G protein βγ subunits in glioblastoma invasion and shows that phosphoinositide 3-kinase mutations in glioblastoma require a context of basal G protein-coupled receptor activity in order to promote this invasion.