History The receptor for turned on C kinase 1 (RACK1) is involved with various cancers but its roles in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) have not yet been fully elucidated. mechanism. Finally clinical samples were analyzed to confirm the relationship between RACK1 expression and clinical features. Results Receptor for activated C kinase 1 expression was much higher in NPC than NP tissues. And RACK1 was mainly located in the cytoplasm. Overexpression of RACK1 promoted NPC cell proliferation and metastasis/invasion whereas depletion of this protein suppressed NPC cell proliferation and metastasis/invasion. Mechanistically RACK1 deprivation obviously suppressed the activation of Akt and FAK suggesting the PI3K/Akt/FAK pathway as one of functional mechanisms of RACK1 in NPC. Furthermore clinical sample analysis indicated a positive correlation between in vivo expression of RACK1 with lymph node invasion and clinical stage of NPC. Conclusion Our results demonstrate that RACK1?protein plays an important role?in NPC development and progression.?The upregulation of RACK1 can promote the proliferation and invasion of NPC by regulating the PI3K/Akt/FAK signal pathway. Hence this scholarly research plays a part in the breakthrough of the potential therapeutic focus on for NPC. Electronic supplementary materials The online edition of this content (doi:10.1186/s12967-016-0885-x) contains supplementary materials which is open to certified users. AZD 2932 Values had been two-sided and significantly less than 0.05 were considered significant statistically. Outcomes The RACK1 appearance in NPC cells and scientific tissue To judge the jobs of RACK1 in NPC AZD 2932 we primarily detected the proteins expression degree of RACK1 in 58 paraffin-embedded NPC examples and 37 noncancerous AZD 2932 nasopharyngeal (NP) examples using immunohistochemical staining. Body?1a-d showed the representative pictures of RACK1 expression in NP and NPC tissue. RACK1 proteins was detectable in AZD 2932 Rabbit polyclonal to MBD3. 98?% (57/58) of NPC examples and in 86?% (32/37) of NP examples. Notably RACK1 proteins expression was significantly higher in NPC examples than NP examples (P?