Activation of KRAS promotes the mesenchymal features of basal-type breast cancer
Basal-type breast cancers are among the most aggressive and deadly breast cancer subtypes, displaying a high metastatic ability associated with mesenchymal features. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the maintenance of mesenchymal phenotypes of basal-type breast cancer cells remain obscur...
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Published in | Experimental & molecular medicine Vol. 47; no. 1; p. e137 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
Springer Nature B.V
01.01.2015
Nature Publishing Group |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Basal-type breast cancers are among the most aggressive and deadly breast cancer subtypes, displaying a high metastatic ability associated with mesenchymal features. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the maintenance of mesenchymal phenotypes of basal-type breast cancer cells remain obscure. Here, we report that KRAS is a critical regulator for the maintenance of mesenchymal features in basal-type breast cancer cells. KRAS is preferentially activated in basal-type breast cancer cells as compared with luminal type. By loss and gain of KRAS, we found that KRAS is necessary and sufficient for the maintenance of mesenchymal phenotypes and metastatic ability through SLUG expression. Taken together, this study demonstrates that KRAS is a critical regulator for the metastatic behavior associated with mesenchymal features of breast cancer cells, implicating a novel therapeutic target for basal-type breast cancer. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 These authors contributed equally to this work. |
ISSN: | 2092-6413 1226-3613 2092-6413 |
DOI: | 10.1038/emm.2014.99 |