Department of Medical Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Institute of Biomedicine, Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg University, 40530 Gothenburg, Sweden.
Department of Human Structure and Repair, Anatomy and Embryology Unit, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Feb 21;120(8):e2216479120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2216479120. Epub 2023 Feb 15.
Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) fusion variants in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) consist of numerous dimerizing fusion partners. Retrospective investigations suggest that treatment benefit in response to ALK tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) differs dependent on the fusion variant present in the patient tumor. Therefore, understanding the oncogenic signaling networks driven by different ALK fusion variants is important. To do this, we developed controlled inducible cell models expressing either Echinoderm Microtubule Associated Protein Like 4 (EML4)-ALK-V1, EML4-ALK-V3, Kinesin Family Member 5B (KIF5B)-ALK, or TRK-fused gene (TFG)-ALK and investigated their transcriptomic and proteomic responses to ALK activity modulation together with patient-derived ALK-positive NSCLC cell lines. This allowed identification of both common and isoform-specific responses downstream of these four ALK fusions. An inflammatory signature that included upregulation of the Serpin B4 serine protease inhibitor was observed in both ALK fusion inducible and patient-derived cells. We show that Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3), Nuclear Factor Kappa B (NF-κB) and Activator protein 1 (AP1) are major transcriptional regulators of downstream of ALK fusions. Upregulation of promotes survival and inhibits natural killer cell-mediated cytotoxicity, which has potential for therapeutic impact targeting the immune response together with ALK TKIs in NSCLC.
间变性淋巴瘤激酶 (ALK) 融合变体在非小细胞肺癌 (NSCLC) 中包含许多二聚化融合伴侣。回顾性研究表明,ALK 酪氨酸激酶抑制剂 (TKI) 治疗的获益因患者肿瘤中存在的融合变体而异。因此,了解不同 ALK 融合变体驱动的致癌信号网络非常重要。为此,我们开发了表达 Echinoderm Microtubule Associated Protein Like 4 (EML4)-ALK-V1、EML4-ALK-V3、Kinesin Family Member 5B (KIF5B)-ALK 或 TRK 融合基因 (TFG)-ALK 的可控诱导细胞模型,并研究了它们对 ALK 活性调节的转录组和蛋白质组反应,以及患者来源的 ALK 阳性 NSCLC 细胞系。这使得我们能够鉴定这四种 ALK 融合体下游的共同和亚型特异性反应。在 ALK 融合诱导和患者来源的细胞中观察到包括丝氨酸蛋白酶抑制剂 Serpin B4 上调的炎症特征。我们表明,转录因子 3 (STAT3)、核因子 Kappa B (NF-κB) 和激活蛋白 1 (AP1) 是 ALK 融合下游的主要转录调节剂。上调促进存活并抑制自然杀伤细胞介导的细胞毒性,这可能对 NSCLC 中的免疫反应与 ALK TKI 联合治疗具有治疗意义。