TY - JOUR
T1 - Manic fringe promotes a claudin-low breast cancer phenotype through notch-mediated PIK3CG induction
AU - Zhang, Shubing
AU - Chung, Wen Cheng
AU - Wu, Guanming
AU - Egan, Sean E.
AU - Miele, Lucio
AU - Xu, Keli
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 American Association for Cancer Research.
PY - 2015/5/15
Y1 - 2015/5/15
N2 - Claudin-low breast cancer (CLBC) is a poor prognosis disease biologically characterized by stemness and mesenchymal features. These tumors disproportionately affect younger patients and women with African ancestry, causing significant morbidity and mortality, and no effective targeted therapy exists at present. CLBC is thought to originate from mammary stem cells, but little is known on how or why these tumors express a stable epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition phenotype, or what are the driving forces of this disease. Here, we report that Manic Fringe (Mfng), which encodes an O-fucosylpeptide 3-β-N-acetylglucosaminyl-transferase known to modify EGF repeats in the Notch extracellular domain, is highly expressed in CLBC and functions as an oncogene in this context. We show that Mfng modulates Notch activation in human and mouse CLBC cell lines, as well as in mouse mammary gland. Mfng silencing in CLBC cell lines reduced cell migration, tumorsphere formation, and in vivo tumorigenicity associated with a decrease in the stem-like cell population. Mfng deletion in the Lfngflox/flox;MMTV-Cre mouse model, in which one-third of mammary tumors resemble human CLBC, caused a tumor subtype shift away from CLBC. We identified the phosphoinositide kinase Pik3cg as a direct transcriptional target of Mfng-facilitated RBPJ k-dependent Notch signaling. Indeed, pharmacologic inhibition of PI3Kγ in CLBC cell lines blocked migration and tumorsphere formation. Taken together, our results define Mfng as an oncogene acting through Notch-mediated induction of Pik3cg. Furthermore, they suggest that targeting PI3Kγ may prove beneficial for the treatment of CLBC subtype.
AB - Claudin-low breast cancer (CLBC) is a poor prognosis disease biologically characterized by stemness and mesenchymal features. These tumors disproportionately affect younger patients and women with African ancestry, causing significant morbidity and mortality, and no effective targeted therapy exists at present. CLBC is thought to originate from mammary stem cells, but little is known on how or why these tumors express a stable epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition phenotype, or what are the driving forces of this disease. Here, we report that Manic Fringe (Mfng), which encodes an O-fucosylpeptide 3-β-N-acetylglucosaminyl-transferase known to modify EGF repeats in the Notch extracellular domain, is highly expressed in CLBC and functions as an oncogene in this context. We show that Mfng modulates Notch activation in human and mouse CLBC cell lines, as well as in mouse mammary gland. Mfng silencing in CLBC cell lines reduced cell migration, tumorsphere formation, and in vivo tumorigenicity associated with a decrease in the stem-like cell population. Mfng deletion in the Lfngflox/flox;MMTV-Cre mouse model, in which one-third of mammary tumors resemble human CLBC, caused a tumor subtype shift away from CLBC. We identified the phosphoinositide kinase Pik3cg as a direct transcriptional target of Mfng-facilitated RBPJ k-dependent Notch signaling. Indeed, pharmacologic inhibition of PI3Kγ in CLBC cell lines blocked migration and tumorsphere formation. Taken together, our results define Mfng as an oncogene acting through Notch-mediated induction of Pik3cg. Furthermore, they suggest that targeting PI3Kγ may prove beneficial for the treatment of CLBC subtype.
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U2 - 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-14-3303
DO - 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-14-3303
M3 - Article
C2 - 25808869
AN - SCOPUS:84942869368
SN - 0008-5472
VL - 75
SP - 1936
EP - 1943
JO - Cancer Research
JF - Cancer Research
IS - 10
ER -