PRL2 links magnesium flux and sex-dependent circadian metabolic rhythms.

Magnesium (Mg2+) plays pleiotropic roles in cellular biology, and it is essentially required for all living organisms. Although previous studies demonstrated intracellular Mg2+ levels were regulated by the complex of phosphatase of regenerating liver 2 (PRL2) and Mg2+ transporter of cyclin M (CNNMs), physiological functions of PRL2 in whole animals remain unclear. Interestingly, Mg2+ was recently identified as a regulator of circadian rhythm-dependent metabolism; however, no mechanism was found to explain the clock-dependent Mg2+ oscillation. Herein, we report PRL2 as a missing link between sex and metabolism, as well as clock genes and daily cycles of Mg2+ fluxes. Our results unveil that PRL2-null animals displayed sex-dependent alterations in body composition, and expression of PRLs and CNNMs were sex- and circadian time-dependently regulated in brown adipose tissues. Consistently, PRL2-KO mice showed sex-dependent alterations in thermogenesis and in circadian energy metabolism. These physiological changes were associated with an increased rate of uncoupled respiration with lower intracellular Mg2+ in PRL2-KO cells. Moreover, PRL2 deficiency causes inhibition of the ATP citrate lyase axis, which is involved in fatty acid synthesis. Overall, our findings support that sex- and circadian-dependent PRL2 expression alter intracellular Mg2+ levels, which accordingly controls energy metabolism status.

Overexpression of the protein tyrosine phosphatase PRL-2 correlates with breast tumor formation and progression.

The PRL-1, PRL-2, and PRL-3 phosphatases are prenylated protein tyrosine phosphatases with oncogenic activity that are proposed to drive tumor metastasis. We found that PRL-2 mRNA is elevated in primary breast tumors relative to matched normal tissue, and also dramatically elevated in metastatic lymph nodes compared with primary tumors. PRL-2 knockdown in metastatic MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells decreased anchorage-independent growth and cell migration, suggesting that the malignant phenotype of these cells is mediated at least in part through PRL-2 signaling. In different mouse mammary tumor-derived cell lines overexpressing PRL-2, we confirmed its role in anchorage-independent growth and cell migration. Furthermore, injection of PRL-2-overexpressing cells into the mouse mammary fat pad promoted extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 activation and tumor formation. MMTV-PRL-2 transgenic mice engineered to overexpress the enzyme in mammary tissue did not exhibit spontaneous tumorigenesis, but they exhibited an accelerated development of mammary tumors initiated by introduction of an MMTV-ErbB2 transgene. Together, our results argue that PRL-2 plays a role in breast cancer progression.