Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Xu, B
• Lefringhouse, J
• Liu, Z
• West, D
• Baldwin, L A
• Ou, C
• Chen, L
• Napier, D
• Chaiswing, L
• Brewer, L D
• St. Clair, D
• Thibault, O
• van Nagell, J R
• Zhou, B P
• Drapkin, R
• Huang, J-A
• Lu, M L
• Ueland, F R
• Yang, X H

Titel

Inhibition of the integrin/FAK signaling axis and c-Myc synergistically disrupts ovarian cancer malignancy

Ist Teil von

• Oncogenesis (New York, NY), 2017-01, Vol.6 (1), p.e295-e295

Ort / Verlag

London: Nature Publishing Group UK

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Quelle

Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek (Open access)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Integrins, a family of heterodimeric receptors for extracellular matrix, are promising therapeutic targets for ovarian cancer, particularly high-grade serous-type (HGSOC), as they drive tumor cell attachment, migration, proliferation and survival by activating focal adhesion kinase (FAK)-dependent signaling. Owing to the potential off-target effects of FAK inhibitors, disruption of the integrin signaling axis remains to be a challenge. Here, we tackled this barrier by screening for inhibitors being functionally cooperative with small-molecule VS-6063, a phase II FAK inhibitor. From this screening, JQ1, a potent inhibitor of Myc oncogenic network, emerged as the most robust collaborator. Treatment with a combination of VS-6063 and JQ1 synergistically caused an arrest of tumor cells at the G2/M phase and a decrease in the XIAP-linked cell survival. Our subsequent mechanistic analyses indicate that this functional cooperation was strongly associated with the concomitant disruption of activation or expression of FAK and c-Myc as well as their downstream signaling through the PI3K/Akt pathway. In line with these observations, we detected a strong co-amplification or upregulation at genomic or protein level for FAK and c-Myc in a large portion of primary tumors in the TCGA or a local HGSOC patient cohort. Taken together, our results suggest that the integrin–FAK signaling axis and c-Myc synergistically drive cell proliferation, survival and oncogenic potential in HGSOC. As such, our study provides key genetic, functional and signaling bases for the small-molecule-based co-targeting of these two distinct oncogenic drivers as a new line of targeted therapy against human ovarian cancer.