Zhao Zhen, Li Rui, Sha Sha, Wang Qiong, Mao Weidong, Liu Tao
Department of Oncology; The Affiliated Jiangyin Hospital of Southeast University Medical College; Wuxi, Jiangsu, PR China.
Department of Hematology; the First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province; Kunming, Yunnan, PR China.
Cancer Biol Ther. 2014 Oct;15(10):1404-12. doi: 10.4161/cbt.29923. Epub 2014 Jul 21.
In breast cancer cells, heterodimerization of HER2 and HER3 plays important and dominant roles in the functionality and transformation of HER-mediated pathways, in particular the PI3K/Akt survival pathway. HER3 was considered as a major signaling hub in HER2-amplified cancers. Inhibition of HER3 expression may therefore represent a rational therapeutic approach to breast cancers where HER2/HER3-mediated signaling plays a role in tumorigenesis and progression. miRNAs exerts important roles in regulating gene expressions by binding to and repressing target mRNAs. Here we reported that miRNA-450b-3p inhibits HER3 expression by directly targeting 3' UTR of HER3 mRNA and represses the downstream signal transductions of HER family. Overexpression of miRNA-450b-3p in SKBR3 cells inhibits cells clonogenic potential and enhances their sensitivity to trastuzumab, a monoclonal antibody that binds to the HER2 receptor, or doxorubicin through repressing proliferative signal pathways mediated by HER3/HER2/PI3K/AKT. Furthermore, we found that breast cancer patients with tumors that demonstrating upregulated HER3 (> 2-fold) and downregulated miR-450b-3p (> 2-fold) expressions compared with the paired adjacent non-tumorous tissues showed significantly poorer overall survival (P<0.05). Our study identified miRNA-450b-3p as a new tumor repressor and also provided some evidences suggesting that downregulation of miR-450b-3p expression with concurrent overexpression of HER3 may serve as a prognostic biomarker for poor overall survival in breast cancer patients.
在乳腺癌细胞中,HER2与HER3的异二聚化在HER介导的信号通路的功能和转化中发挥着重要且主导的作用,尤其是在PI3K/Akt生存信号通路中。HER3被认为是HER2扩增型癌症中的主要信号枢纽。因此,抑制HER3表达可能是治疗HER2/HER3介导的信号在肿瘤发生和进展中起作用的乳腺癌的一种合理治疗方法。微小RNA(miRNA)通过与靶mRNA结合并抑制其表达来发挥调控基因表达的重要作用。在此,我们报告miRNA-450b-3p通过直接靶向HER3 mRNA的3'非翻译区(UTR)来抑制HER3表达,并抑制HER家族的下游信号转导。在SKBR3细胞中过表达miRNA-450b-3p可抑制细胞的克隆形成能力,并通过抑制由HER3/HER2/PI3K/AKT介导的增殖信号通路,增强细胞对曲妥珠单抗(一种与HER2受体结合的单克隆抗体)或阿霉素的敏感性。此外,我们发现与配对的相邻非肿瘤组织相比,肿瘤中HER3表达上调(>2倍)且miR-450b-3p表达下调(>2倍)的乳腺癌患者总体生存率显著较差(P<0.05)。我们的研究确定miRNA-450b-3p为一种新的肿瘤抑制因子,同时也提供了一些证据表明,miR-450b-3p表达下调并伴随HER3过表达可能作为乳腺癌患者总体生存率差的预后生物标志物。