Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, Glasgow G61 1BD, United Kingdom.
Prostate cancer (CaP) is the most common cancer among adult men in the Western world. Better insight into its tumor-activating pathways may facilitate the development of targeted therapies. In this study, we show that patients who develop prostate tumors with low levels of PTEN and high levels of HER2/3 have a poor prognosis. This is functionally relevant, as targeting Her2 activation to the murine prostate cooperates with Pten loss and drives CaP progression. Mechanistically, this is associated with activation of the MAPK pathway and abrogation of the Pten loss-induced cellular senescence program. Importantly, inhibition of MEK function strongly suppressed proliferation within these tumors by restoring the Pten loss-induced cellular senescence program. Taken together, these data suggest that stratification of CaP patients for HER2/3 and PTEN status could identify patients with aggressive CaP who may respond favorably to MEK inhibition.
Written by:
Ahmad I, Patel R, Singh LB, Nixon C, Seywright M, Barnetson RJ, Brunton VG, Muller WJ, Edwards J, Sansom OJ, Leung HY. Are you the author?
Reference: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Sep 27;108(39):16392-7.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1101263108
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 21930937
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