Src Is a Potential Therapeutic Target in Endocrine-Resistant Breast Cancer Exhibiting Low Estrogen Receptor-Mediated Transactivation
Despite the effectiveness of endocrine therapies in estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer, approximately 40% of patients relapse. Previously, we identified the Focal-adhesion kinase canonical pathway as a major contributor of resistance to estrogen deprivation and cellular-sarcoma kinase (c...
Saved in:
Published in | PloS one Vol. 11; no. 6; p. e0157397 |
---|---|
Main Authors | , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
Public Library of Science
01.06.2016
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
Cover
Loading…
Summary: | Despite the effectiveness of endocrine therapies in estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer, approximately 40% of patients relapse. Previously, we identified the Focal-adhesion kinase canonical pathway as a major contributor of resistance to estrogen deprivation and cellular-sarcoma kinase (c-src) as a dominant gene in this pathway. Dasatinib, a pan-src inhibitor, has recently been used in clinical trials to treat ER+ patients but has shown mixed success. In the following study, using isogenic cell line models, we provide a potential explanation for these findings and suggest a sub-group that may benefit. A panel of isogenic cell lines modelling resistance to aromatase inhibitors (LTED) and tamoxifen (TAMR) were assessed for response to dasatinib ± endocrine therapy. Dasatinib caused a dose-dependent decrease in proliferation in MCF7-TAMR cells and resensitized them to tamoxifen and fulvestrant but not in HCC1428-TAMR. In contrast, in estrogen-deprived conditions, dasatinib increased the proliferation rate of parental-MCF7 cells and had no effect on MCF7-LTED or HCC1428-LTED. Treatment with dasatinib caused a decrease in src-phosphorylation and inhibition of downstream pathways, including AKT and ERK1/2 in all cell lines tested, but only the MCF7-TAMR showed a concomitant decrease in markers of cell cycle progression. Inhibition of src also caused a significant decrease in cell migration in both MCF7-LTED and MCF7-TAMR cells. Finally, we showed that, in MCF7-TAMR cells, in contrast to tamoxifen sensitive cell lines, ER is expressed throughout the cell rather than being restricted to the nucleus and that treatment with dasatinib resulted in nuclear shuttling of ER, which was associated with an increase in ER-mediated transcription. These data suggest that src has differential effects in endocrine-resistant cell lines, particularly in tamoxifen resistant models, with low ER genomic activity, providing further evidence of the importance of patient selection for clinical trials testing dasatinib utility in ER+ breast cancer. |
---|---|
Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Conceived and designed the experiments: LAM SRJ. Performed the experiments: SKG RR SP JNB NS. Analyzed the data: LAM RR SKG. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MD LAM RR SP. Wrote the paper: LAM RR MD. Competing Interests: M.D. is on the scientific advisory board of Radius and has paid consulting relationships with GTx, Roche/Genentech, Genoptix, NanoString, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Astrazeneca and Ventana. L.A.M. receives academic funding from Pfizer, Puma and Astrazeneca. S.R.J. is on the scientific advisory board of Eli Lilly, Astrazeneca and has paid consulting relationships with Novartis and research funding from Pfizer. All other authors declare that they have no competing interests. The authors confirm that their competing interests do not alter their adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. |
ISSN: | 1932-6203 1932-6203 |
DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0157397 |