Fibroblast activation protein drives tumor metastasis via a protease-independent role in invadopodia stabilization

During metastasis, tumor cells invade through the basement membrane and intravasate into blood vessels and then extravasate into distant organs to establish metastases. Here, we report a critical role of a transmembrane serine protease fibroblast activation protein (FAP) in tumor metastasis. Expression of FAP and TWIST1, a metastasis driver, is significantly correlated in several types of human carcinomas, and FAP is required for TWIST1-induced breast cancer metastasis to the lung. Mechanistically, FAP is localized at invadopodia and required for invadopodia-mediated extracellular matrix degradation independent of its proteolytic activity. Live cell imaging shows that association of invadopodia precursors with FAP at the cell membrane promotes the stabilization and growth of invadopodia precursors into mature invadopodia. Together, our study identified FAP as a functional target of TWIST1 in driving tumor metastasis via promoting invadopodia-mediated matrix degradation and uncovered a proteolytic activity-independent role of FAP in stabilizing invadopodia precursors for maturation.