Prevention of mammary carcinogenesis in MMTV-neu mice by targeting RLIP.

The overexpression and amplification of the protooncogene neu (ERBB2) play an important role in the development of aggressive breast cancer (BC) in humans. Ral-interacting protein (RLIP), a modular stress-response protein with pleiotropic functions, is overexpressed in several types of cancer, including BC. Here, we show that blocking RLIP attenuates the deleterious effects caused by the loss of the tumor suppressor p53 and inhibits the growth of human BC both in vitro and in vivo in MMTV-neu mice. In addition, we show that treatment with the diet-derived, RLIP-targeting chemotherapeutic 2'-hydroxyflavanone (2HF), alone or in combination with RLIP-specific antisense RNA or antibodies, significantly reduced the cumulative incidence and/or burden of mammary hyperplasia and carcinoma in MMTV-neu mice. 2HF treatment correlated with reduced tumor cell proliferation and increased apoptosis, and the average number of Ki67-positive (proliferating) cells was significantly lower in the tumors of 2HF-treated mice than in the tumors of control mice. Furthermore, targeting RLIP also resulted in the overexpression of E-cadherin and the infiltration of CD3+ T cells into mammary tumors. Taken together, these results underscore the translational potential of RLIP-targeting agents and provide a strong rationale to validate them in the clinic.

Frequent overexpression of AMAP1, an Arf6 effector in cell invasion, is characteristic of the MMTV-PyMT rather than the MMTV-Neu human breast cancer model.

BACKGROUND: The small GTPase Arf6 and its downstream effector AMAP1 (also called ASAP1/DDEF1) constitute a signaling pathway promoting cell invasion, in which AMAP1 interacts with several different proteins, including PRKD2, EPB41L5, paxillin, and cortactin. Components of this pathway are often overexpressed in human breast cancer cells, to be correlated with poor prognosis of the patients, whereas overexpression of the Arf6 pathway did not correlate with the four main molecular classes of human breast tumors. In this pathway, receptor tyrosine kinases, including EGFR and Her2, activate Arf6 via GEP100. MMTV-PyMT mice and MMTV-Neu mice are well-established models of human breast cancer, and exhibit the early dissemination and the lung metastasis, by utilizing protein tyrosine phosphorylation for oncogenesis. PyMT-tumors and Neu-tumors are known to have overlapping gene expression profiles, which primarily correspond to the luminal B-type of human mammary tumors, although they differ in the time necessary for tumor onset and metastasis. Given the common usage of protein tyrosine phosphorylation, as well as the frequent use of these animal models for studying breast cancer at the molecular level, we here investigated whether mammary tumors in these mouse models utilize the Arf6-based pathway for invasion. METHODS: Expression levels of Arf6, AMAP1, and GEP100 were analyzed in PyMT-tumors and Neu-tumors by western blotting. Expression of Arf6 and AMAP1 was also analyzed by immunohistochemistry. The involvement of AMAP1 in invasion, and the possible correlation of its high expression levels with cancer mesenchymal properties were also investigated. RESULTS: We found that PyMT-tumors, but not Neu-tumors, frequently overexpress AMAP1 and use it for invasion, whereas both types of tumors expressed Arf6 and GEP100 at different levels. High levels of the AMAP1 expression among PyMT-tumor cells were frequently correlated with loss of the epithelial marker CK8 and also with expression of the mesenchymal marker vimentin both at the primary sites and at sites of the lung metastases. CONCLUSIONS: PyMT-tumors appear to frequently utilize the Arf6-based invasive machinery, whereas Neu-tumors do not. Our results suggest that MMTV-PyMT mice, rather than MMTV-Neu mice, are useful to study the Arf6-based mammary tumor malignancies, as a representative model of human breast cancer.

Autophagy Blockade Limits HER2+ Breast Cancer Tumorigenesis by Perturbing HER2 Trafficking and Promoting Release Via Small Extracellular Vesicles.

Autophagy modulation is an emerging strategy for cancer therapy. By deleting an essential autophagy gene or disrupting its autophagy function, we determined a mechanism of HER2+ breast cancer tumorigenesis by directly regulating the oncogenic driver. Disruption of FIP200-mediated autophagy reduced HER2 expression on the tumor cell surface and abolished mammary tumorigenesis in MMTV-Neu mice. Decreased HER2 surface expression was due to trafficking from the Golgi to the endocytic pathways instead of the plasma membrane. Autophagy inhibition led to HER2 accumulation in early and late endosomes associated with intraluminal vesicles and released from tumor cells in small extracellular vesicles (sEVs). Increased HER2 release from sEVs correlated with reduced tumor cell surface levels. Blocking sEVs secretion rescued HER2 levels in tumor cells. Our results demonstrate a role for autophagy to promote tumorigenesis in HER2+ breast cancer. This suggests that blocking autophagy could supplement current anti-HER2 agents for treating the disease.