Project description:One-third of all ER+ breast tumors treated with endocrine therapy fail to respond, and the remainder are likely to relapse in the future. Almost all data on endocrine resistance has been obtained in models of invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC). However, invasive lobular carcinomas (ILC) comprise up to 15% of newly diagnosed invasive breast cancers diagnosed each year and, while the incidence of IDC has remained relatively constant during the last 20 years, the prevalence of ILC continues to increase among postmenopausal women. We report a new model of Tamoxifen (TAM)-resistant invasive lobular breast carcinoma cells that provides novel insights into the molecular mechanisms of endocrine resistance. SUM44 cells express ER and are sensitive to the growth inhibitory effects of antiestrogens. Selection for resistance to 4-hydroxytamoxifen led to the development of the SUM44/LCCTam cell line, which exhibits decreased expression of estrogen receptor alpha (ERÎ±) and increased expression of the estrogen-related receptor gamma (ERRÎ³). Knockdown of ERRÎ³ in SUM44/LCCTam cells by siRNA restores TAM sensitivity, and overexpression of ERRÎ³ blocks the growth-inhibitory effects of TAM in SUM44 and MDA-MB-134 VI lobular breast cancer cells. ERRÎ³-driven transcription is also increased in SUM44/LCCTam, and inhibition of activator protein 1 (AP1) can restore or enhance TAM sensitivity. These data support a role for ERRÎ³/AP1 signaling in the development of TAM resistance, and suggest that expression of ERRÎ³ may be a marker of poor Tamoxifen response. Experiment Overall Design: Total RNA was extracted from sub-confluent T-25 cm^2 tissue culture flasks of SUM44 and LCCTam cells, then processed and arrayed. Microarray data quality was then assessed using several tools, including those recommended by Affymetrix and a series of additional QC measures. The Robust Multiple-Array Average (RMA) method was used to preprocess the raw gene expression data, as implemented in the Bioconductor project (http://bioconductor.org). We then isolated a reduced dimension dataset that included genes that exhibit â¥2 fold change, p<0.05 and genes with intensity â¥log2(10) in both SUM44 and SUM44/LCCTam groups. Data visualization before and after dimensionality reduction was facilitated by multidimensional scaling as estimated using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Discriminant Component Analysis (DCA), to ensure that the global structure of the data was not altered by dimensionality reduction procedures.

Project description:Resistance to tamoxifen is a major challenge in the treatment of estrogen receptor positive breast cancer. Acquired resistance to drug involves multilayered genetic and epigenetic regulation . The oncogene EZH2 plays significant role in the development of resistance against tamoxifen, widely used in the treatment of breast cancer. Inhibition of EZH2 has proven to reverse the tamoxifen resistance breast cancer cells back to the sensitive state. The molecular mechanism through which EZH2 inhibition triggers its effects are not known.This study was conducted to understand the global change in proteome profile of tamoxifen resistant MCF-7 breast cancer cells as a result of effect of EZH2 knockdown. Label Free Quantitative proteomics revealed a large number of proteins altered in acquired tamoxifen resistant cells compared to the sensitive cells. A total of 286 proteins were identified with normalized RT for each m/z out of which 86 proteins were upregulated by more than 1.3 fold and 98 proteins were down regulated by more than 1.3 fold in MCF-7 tamoxifen resistant breast cancer cells in comparison to the sensitive breast cancer cells. Upon EZH2 knockdown in tamoxifen resistant cells, a total of 115 proteins were found to be altered with 20 proteins upregulated by more than 1.3 fold and 49 proteins down regulated by more than 1.3 fold. Among the top upregulated proteins were L-lactate dehydrogenase A chain, Alpha and Gamma-enolase, Calreticulin, heat shock protein HSP-90-beta, Alpha-actinin-4, Elongation factor 1-alpha, Vimentin, Protein S100A6, Putative protein FAM10A5, Heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein A1 and Keratin 1. In addition, 15 proteins were found to be down regulated in EZH2si transfected tamoxifen sensitive cells which otherwise were highlyup regulated in resistant cells in the presence of normal level of EZH2. This indicates a possible regulation of these molecules by EZH2 leading to loss of resistance. Our data unveils important molecular players downstream to EZH2 knockdown leading to regain of sensitivity to tamoxifen in acquired tamoxifen resistance.Thus, EZH2 seems to exert its effects through regulation of metabolism, epithelial to mesenchymal transition and protein synthesis & folding. Hence, targeting EZH2 or the molecules down the cascade might be helpful in reacquiring sensitivity to tamoxifen intamoxifen-resistant cells.

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.

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