K-ras 4A and 4B mRNA levels correlate with superoxide in lung adenocarcinoma cells, while at the protein level, only mutant K-ras 4A protein correlates with superoxide.

The K-ras gene is frequently mutated in lung and other cancers. K-ras protein includes two splice variants, K-ras 4A and 4B. While K-ras 4B is more widely expressed, recent evidence implicates K-ras 4A in lung tumorigenesis. We found that K-ras 4A protein has a wide range of expression in a large panel of human lung adenocarcinoma cell lines. In cell lines with mutant K-ras, but not those with wildtype K-ras, the K-ras 4A protein had a strong positive correlation with levels of cellular superoxide. We investigated whether K-ras 4A protein was involved in superoxide production, or alternatively was modulated by elevated superoxide. Experiments with small interfering RNA targeting K-ras 4A did not confirm its role in superoxide generation. However, decreasing cellular superoxide with the scavenger Tiron tended to reduce levels of K-ras 4A protein. K-ras 4A and 4B mRNA were also quantified in a number of NSCLC cell lines. 4A mRNA correlated with 4A protein only in K-ras-mutant cells. K-ras 4A mRNA also correlated with superoxide, but with no difference between cell lines with mutant or wildtype K-ras. K-ras 4B mRNA correlated with 4A mRNA and with superoxide, in both K-ras mutant and wildtype cells. The results are consistent with superoxide directly or indirectly up-regulating expression of all K-ras genes, and also increasing the stability of K-ras 4A mutant protein selectively.