Project description:HOTAIR is up-regulated in tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer tissues compared to their primary counterparts. Mechanistically, HOTAIR is a direct target of ER-mediated transcriptional repression and is thus restored upon the blockade of ER signaling, either by hormone deprivation or tamoxifen treatment.
Project description:HOTAIR is up-regulated in tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer tissues compared to their primary counterparts. Mechanistically, HOTAIR is a direct target of ER-mediated transcriptional repression and is thus restored upon the blockade of ER signaling, either by hormone deprivation or tamoxifen treatment.
Project description:Estrogen and estrogen receptor (ER) signaling play critical roles in the development of ER-positive breast cancer, and endocrine therapy is the frontline treatment for ER-positive breast cancer patients. However, the primary and acquired resistance to endocrine therapy including tamoxifen and fulvestrant remains as the major challenge in the clinic. Here, we identified an estrogen-induced lncRNA, LINC02568, through transcriptomic analysis, which is highly expressed in ER-positive breast cancer. LINC02568 is functional important in ER-positive breast cancer cell growth in vitro and tumorigenesis in vivo as well as endocrine therapy resistance. Mechanically, we demonstrated that LINC02568 regulates, in trans, estrogen/ERα-induced gene transcriptional activation by sponging miR-1233-5p to stabilize ESR1 mRNA in the cytoplasm. Meanwhile, LINC02568 contributes to tumor-specific pH homeostasis in breast cancer cells by regulating CA12 in cis in the nucleus. The dual functions of LINC02568 together contribute to breast cancer cell growth and tumorigenesis as well as endocrine therapy resistance. Antisense oligonucleotides (ASO) targeting LINC02568 significantly inhibits ER-positive breast cancer cell growth in vitro and tumorigenesis in vivo as well as resensitize tamoxifen-resistant cells to tamoxifen. Furthermore, combination treatment with ASO targeting LINC02568 and tamoxifen exhibits synergistic effect on tumor growth. Taken together, our findings revealed dual mechanisms of LINC02568 in regulating ERα signaling and pH homeostasis in ER-positive breast cancer, and indicated that targeting LINC02568 might represent a potential therapeutic avenue in clinic.
Project description:Tamoxifen, an antagonist to estrogen receptor (ER), is a first line drug used in breast cancer treatment. However, this therapy is complicated by the fact that a substantial number of patients exhibit either de novo or acquired resistance. To characterize the signaling mechanisms underlying the resistance to tamoxifen, we established a tamoxifen-resistant cell line by treating the MCF7 breast cancer cell line with tamoxifen for over 6 months. We showed that this cell line exhibited resistance to tamoxifen both in vitro and in vivo. In order to quantify the phosphorylation alterations associated with tamoxifen resistance, we performed SILAC-based quantitative phosphoproteomic profiling on the resistant and vehicle-treated sensitive cell lines where we identified >5,600 unique phosphopeptides. We found phosphorylation levels of 1,529 peptides were increased (>2 fold) and 409 peptides were decreased (<0.5-fold) in tamoxifen resistant cells compared to tamoxifen sensitive cells. Gene set enrichment analysis revealed that focal adhesion pathway was the top enriched signaling pathway activated in tamoxifen resistant cells. We observed hyperphosphorylation of the focal adhesion kinases FAK1 and FAK2 in the tamoxifen resistant cells. Of note, FAK2 was not only hyperphosphorylated but also transcriptionally upregulated in tamoxifen resistant cells. Suppression of FAK2 by specific siRNA knockdown could sensitize the resistant cells to the treatment of tamoxifen. We further showed that inhibiting FAK activity using the small molecule inhibitor PF562271 repressed cellular proliferation in vitro and tumor formation in vivo. More importantly, our survival analysis revealed that high expression of FAK2 significantly associated with short metastasis-free survival of ER-positive breast cancer patients treated with tamoxifen-based hormone therapy. Our studies suggest that FAK2 is a great potential target for the development of therapy for the treatment of hormone refractory breast cancers.
Project description:MCM3 is one of several genes whose expression profile is markedly altered in tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer cell lines. We observed that increased MCM3 expression is associated with tamoxifen resistance. Knockdown of MCM3 resulted in increased susceptibility of tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer cell lines. Moreover, MCM3 expression is significantly associated with clinical outcome of endocrine treated receptor positive breast cancer. To understand the effect of MCM3 on the mechanism of endocrine resistance, we performed gene expression array on tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer cell lines. Here we show that MCM3 knockdown affects the expression of hundreds of genes. Resistance to endocrine therapy in estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer is a major clinical problem with poorly understood mechanisms. There is an unmet need for prognostic and predictive biomarkers to allow appropriate therapeutic targeting. We evaluated the mechanism by which minichromosome maintenance protein 3 (MCM3) influences endocrine resistance and its predictive/prognostic potential in ER+ breast cancer. We discovered that ER+ breast cancer cells survive tamoxifen and letrozole treatments through upregulation of minichromosome maintenance proteins (MCMs), including MCM3, which are key molecules in cell cycle and DNA replication. Lowering MCM3 expression in endocrine-resistant cells restored drug sensitivity and altered phosphorylation of cell cycle regulators, including p53(Ser315,33), CHK1(Ser317) and cdc25b(Ser323), suggesting that the interaction of MCM3 with cell cycle proteins is an important mechanism of overcoming replicative stress and anti-proliferative effects of endocrine treatments. Evaluation of MCM3 levels in primary tumors from four independent cohorts of breast cancer patients receiving adjuvant tamoxifen mono-therapy or no adjuvant treatment, including the Stockholm tamoxifen (STO-3) trial, showed MCM3 to be an independent prognostic adding information beyond Ki67. In addition, MCM3 was shown to be a predictive marker of response to endocrine treatment. Our study reveals a coordinated signaling network centered around MCM3 that limits response to endocrine therapy in ER+ breast cancer and identifies MCM3 as a clinically useful prognostic and predictive biomarker that allows personalized treatment of ER+ breast cancer patients.
Project description:Gene expression profiling of invasive breast cancer events from the tamoxifen prevention trial validates low estrogen receptor mRNA level as the main determinant of tamoxifen resistance in estrogen receptor positive breast cancer. In NSABP Breast Cancer Prevention Trial (BCPT), tamoxifen reduced the incidence of estrogen receptor (ER) positive tumors but not estrogen receptor negative breast cancer. More importantly, only 69% of estrogen receptor positive tumors were prevented by tamoxifen. The ER positive tumors arising in tamoxifen arm provides an ideal clinical model for acquired tamoxifen resistance. Based on data from NSABP trial B14 which showed linear prediction of the degree of benefit from adjuvant tamoxifen by the levels of ESR1 mRNA coding for ER-alpha, we hypothesized a priori that level of ESR1 mRNA would be lower in ER positive tumors arising in tamoxifen arm compared to those in placebo arm of BCPT. Keywords: Gene expression profiling analysis
Project description:Why breast cancers become resistant to tamoxifen despite continued expression of the estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) and what factors are responsible for high HER2 expression in these tumors remains an enigma. HOXB7 ChIP analysis followed by validation showed that HOXB7 physically interacts with ERα, and that the HOXB7-ERα complex enhances transcription of many ERα target genes including HER2. Investigating strategies for controlling HOXB7, our studies revealed that MYC, stabilized via phosphorylation mediated by EGFR-HER2 signaling, inhibits transcription of miRNA-196a, a HOXB7 repressor. This leads to increased expression of HOXB7, ER-target genes and HER2. Repressing MYC using small molecule inhibitors reverses these events, and causes regression of breast cancer xenografts. The MYC-HOXB7-HER2 signaling pathway is eminently targetable in endocrine-resistant breast cancer. MCF7 cell lines stably transduced with either vector control of HOXB7. Array ran in duplicates.
Project description:Gene expression profiling of invasive breast cancer events from the tamoxifen prevention trial validates low estrogen receptor mRNA level as the main determinant of tamoxifen resistance in estrogen receptor positive breast cancer. In NSABP Breast Cancer Prevention Trial (BCPT), tamoxifen reduced the incidence of estrogen receptor (ER) positive tumors but not estrogen receptor negative breast cancer. More importantly, only 69% of estrogen receptor positive tumors were prevented by tamoxifen. The ER positive tumors arising in tamoxifen arm provides an ideal clinical model for acquired tamoxifen resistance. Based on data from NSABP trial B14 which showed linear prediction of the degree of benefit from adjuvant tamoxifen by the levels of ESR1 mRNA coding for ER-alpha, we hypothesized a priori that level of ESR1 mRNA would be lower in ER positive tumors arising in tamoxifen arm compared to those in placebo arm of BCPT. Keywords: Gene expression profiling analysis Formalin fixed paraffin embedded tumor blocks with enough tumor tissue for RNA extraction were available from 108 cases (69 from placebo arm and 39 from tamoxifen arm) of the 264 that experienced invasive breast cancer (175 in placebo arm and 89 in tamoxifen arm) in BCPT before unblindings . Central ER immunohistochemistry identified 84 of them as ER positive (57 from placebo arm and 27 from tamoxifen arm). A novel protocol was developed and used to obtain microarray gene expression profiling from the degraded or fragmented RNA extracted from formalin fixed paraffin blocks.Hybridization intensity data were compiled using Partek Genomic Suite. After quantile normalization, genes with mean intensity below 500 were filtred out, which left 7743 probes with informative data. Data were log2 transformed for statistical analysis.