TAE226-induced apoptosis in breast cancer cells with overexpressed Src or EGFR.

Focal adhesion kinase, FAK is a 125 kDa nonreceptor tyrosine kinase that localizes to focal adhesions. FAK is overexpressed in human tumors and regulates cellular adhesion and survival signaling. We have shown previously that the dominant-negative FAK, C-terminal FAK-CD, caused detachment and apoptosis in human breast cancer cells, and that overexpression of an activated form of Src tyrosine kinase or epidermal growth factor receptor, EGFR, suppressed FAK-CD induced apoptotic effects in breast cancer cells. In the present study, we studied the effect of a novel FAK inhibitor, TAE226 (Novartis, Inc.), on the breast cancer cell lines. We used stable breast cancer cell lines overexpressing Src (MCF-7-Src and BT474-Src) or overexpressing EGFR (BT474-EGFR), and control breast cancer cell lines for the treatment with different doses of TAE226 drug. The detachment and apoptosis caused by TAE226 was analyzed and compared with the effect of the dominant-negative adenoviral FAK-CD. The TAE226 drug caused a dose-dependent increase of detachment and apoptosis in both BT474 and MCF-7-Vector and Src cells and in BT474-EGFR and BT474-pcDNA3 cells. Additionally, TAE226 caused downregulation of Y397-FAK, FAK and activation of PARP or caspase-3 proteins. Both Src and EGFR-overexpressing cells were not resistant to the TAE226 treatment compared to FAK-CD treatment. In addition, normal breast MCF-10A cell line was resistant to both TAE226 drug and to the Ad-FAK-CD inhibitor. Thus, inhibition of autophosphorylation activity of FAK with the TAE226 inhibitor at 10-20 microM is effective in causing apoptosis in breast cancer cells, resistant to the Ad-FAK-CD inhibitor that can be used effectively in therapy.