Dermal fibroblast proliferation is improved by β‐catenin overexpression and inhibited by E‐cadherin expression

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Abstract
Several recent studies have shown that proteins of the cadherin‐catenin complex are not only involved in cell‐cell adhesion but also in the proliferation and differentiation processes. For the first time, we investigated the effect of the quantity of cytoplasmic β‐catenin on dermal fibroblast proliferation by overexpressing human β‐catenin in human dermal fibroblasts. Our results show that dermal fibroblasts overexpressing normal β‐catenin or a stabilized β‐catenin mutant have a higher growth rate than control fibroblasts. Moreover, when confluence is reached, the number of fibroblasts is increased when the cells overexpress β‐catenin suggesting a role for β‐catenin in the regulation of contact growth arrest. Finally, by comparing proliferation in normal dermal fibroblasts and dermal fibroblasts expressing E‐cadherin we observed a negative regulatory effect of E‐cadherin expression on fibroblast proliferation. These data demonstrate the involvement of β‐catenin and cadherin in the dermal fibroblast proliferation process and in contact growth arrest.