It is now well established that the enzymes phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3Ks) have a key role in the development and progression of many cancer types and indeed PI3Ks inhibitors are currently being tested in clinical trials. Although eight distinct PI3K isoforms exist, grouped into three classes, most of the evidence currently available are focused on one specific isoform with very little known about the potential role of the other members of this family in cancer. Here we demonstrate that the class II enzyme PI3K-C2β is overexpressed in several human breast cancer cell lines and in human breast cancer specimens. Our data indicate that PI3K-C2β regulates breast cancer cell growth in vitro and in vivo and that PI3K-C2β expression in breast tissues is correlated with the proliferative status of the tumor. Specifically we show that downregulation of PI3K-C2β in breast cancer cell lines reduces colony formation, induces cell cycle arrest and inhibits tumor growth, in particular in an estrogen-dependent in vivo xenograft. Investigation of the mechanism of the PI3K-C2β-dependent regulation of cell cycle progression and cell growth revealed that PI3K-C2β regulates cyclin B1 protein levels through modulation of microRNA miR-449a levels. Our data further demonstrate that downregulation of PI3K-C2β inhibits breast cancer cell invasion in vitro and breast cancer metastasis in vivo. Consistent with this, PI3K-C2β is highly expressed in lymph-nodes metastases compared to matching primary tumors. These data demonstrate that PI3K-C2β plays a pivotal role in breast cancer progression and in metastasis development. Our data indicate that PI3K-C2β may represent a key molecular switch that regulates a rate-limiting step in breast tumor progression and therefore it may be targeted to limit breast cancer spread.

Biliary tract carcinomas (BTC) are malignant tumors with limited therapeutic options. Clinical experiences with anti-EGFR therapies have produced unsatisfactory results. The strategies of combined inhibition of EGFR and MEK1/2 could be a promising therapeutic option in BTC treatment. Preclinical activity of Panitumumab and Trametinib was tested in in vitro (EGI-1, MT-CHC01 and WITT cells) and in in vivo (xenograft) BTC models with different K-RAS mutational status. Trametinib reduced MAPK phosphorylation in wild type (WT) WITT cells and in both K-RAS mutated cells; in EGI-1 was also able to switch off EGFR activation. Panitumumab reduced the activation of its target only in EGI-1 cells, and of MAPK only in WITT cells. While Trametinib inhibited cell growth in K-RAS mutated cell lines, Panitumumab had no effect on proliferation independently by K-RAS status. The addition of Panitumumab to Trametinib did not significantly potentiate its anti-proliferative effect also in mutated cells. In vivo, Trametinib was able to significantly slow the tumor growth in K-RAS mutated xenograft models, but did not have effect on K-RAS WT cells; the addition of Panitumumab potentiated the Trametinib efficacy in MT-CHC01 and overcame the resistance to the anti-EGFR in WITT cells, in which the monotherapy was ineffective. Only in K-RAS mutated xenografts Trametinib alone or in combination with Panitumumab significantly decreased Ki67 positive cell fraction and CD31 angiogenesis markers. In conclusion, this preclinical study provides a rational to plan clinical trials assessing the efficacy of Trametinib in K-RAS mutated BTC patients and the combination with anti-EGFR in WT BTC patients.

Vav1 is one of the signalling proteins normally restricted to hematopoietic cells that results ectopically expressed in solid tumors, including breast cancer. By immunohistochemical analysis on TMAs containing invasive breast tumor from patients without lymph node involvement, we have found that Vav1 is expressed in almost all investigated cancers and shows a peculiar localization inside the nucleus of tumor cells. High amounts of nuclear Vav1 are positively correlated with low incidence of relapse, regardless phenotype and molecular subtype of breast neoplasia. In particular, Kaplan-Meier plots showed an elevated risk of distant metastasis in patients with low Vav1 expression compared with patients with high Vav1 expression in their tumors. Experiments performed with breast tumor-derived cells indicated that Vav1 negatively modulates their invasiveness in vitro and their metastatic efficiency in vivo, possibly by affecting the expression of genes involved in invasion and/or metastasis of breast tumors. Since the high heterogeneity of breast tumors makes difficult to predict the evolution of early breast neoplasias, the evaluation of nuclear Vav1 levels may help in the characterization and management of early breast cancer patients. In particular, Vav1 may serve as a prognostic biomarker and a target for new therapies aimed to prevent breast cancer progression.

Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) is an aggressive and lethal malignancy with limited therapeutic options. Trabectedin has a high antitumor activity in preclinical models of biliary tract carcinoma (BTC), being a promising alternative treatment. Here, we studied the effect of trabectedin at transcriptomic level on an ICC patient derived xenograft (PDX) and on the derived cell line, MT-CHC01. Further, putative targets of trabectedin were explored in the in vitro model. In vitro, trabectedin inhibited genes involved in protein modification, neurogenesis, migration, and motility; it induced the expression of genes involved in keratinization, tissues development, and apoptotic processes. In the PDX model, trabectedin affected ECM-receptor interaction, focal adhesion, complement and coagulation cascades, Hedgehog, MAPK, EGFR signaling via PIP3 pathway, and apoptosis. Among down-regulated genes, we selected SYK and LGALS1; their silencing caused a significantly reduction of migration, but did not affect proliferation in in vitro models. In MT-CHC01 cells, 24 microRNAs were deregulated upon drug treatment, while only 5 microRNAs were perturbed by trabectedin in PDX. The target prediction analysis showed that SYK and LGALS1 are putative targets of up-regulated microRNAs. In conclusion, we described that trabectedin affected genes and microRNAs involved in tumor progression and metastatic processes, reflecting data previously obtained at macroscopically level; in particular, we identified SYK and LGALS1 as new putative targets of trabectedin.

Adenocarcinomas of the prostate arise as multifocal heterogeneous lesions as the likely result of genetic and epigenetic alterations and deranged cell-cell communication. Notch signaling is an important form of intercellular communication with a role in growth/differentiation control and tumorigenesis. Contrasting reports exist in the literature on the role of this pathway in prostate cancer (PCa) development. We show here that i) compared to normal prostate tissue, Notch1 expression is significantly reduced in a substantial fraction of human PCas while it is unaffected or even increased in others; ii) acute Notch activation both inhibits and induces process networks associated with prostatic neoplasms; iii) down-modulation of Notch1 expression and activity in immortalized normal prostate epithelial cells increases their proliferation potential, while increased Notch1 activity in PCa cells suppresses growth and tumorigenicity through a Smad3-dependent mechanism involving p21WAF1/CIP1; iv) prostate cancer cells resistant to Notch growth inhibitory effects retain Notch1-induced upregulation of pro-oncogenic genes, like EPAS1 and CXCL6, also overexpressed in human PCas with high Notch1 levels. Taken together, these results reconcile conflicting data on the role of Notch1 in prostate cancer.

Despite increasing amounts of experimental evidence depicting the involvement of non-coding RNAs in cancer, the study of BRAFV600E-regulated genes has thus far focused mainly on protein-coding ones. Here, we identify and study the microRNAs that BRAFV600E regulates through the ERK pathway.By performing small RNA sequencing on A375 melanoma cells and a vemurafenib-resistant clone that was taken as negative control, we discover miR-204 and miR-211 as the miRNAs most induced by vemurafenib. We also demonstrate that, although belonging to the same family, these two miRNAs have distinctive features. miR-204 is under the control of STAT3 and its expression is induced in amelanotic melanoma cells, where it acts as an effector of vemurafenib's anti-motility activity by targeting AP1S2. Conversely, miR-211, a known transcriptional target of MITF, is induced in melanotic melanoma cells, where it targets EDEM1 and consequently impairs the degradation of TYROSINASE (TYR) through the ER-associated degradation (ERAD) pathway. In doing so, miR-211 serves as an effector of vemurafenib's pro-pigmentation activity. We also show that such an increase in pigmentation in turn represents an adaptive response that needs to be overcome using appropriate inhibitors in order to increase the efficacy of vemurafenib.In summary, we unveil the distinct and context-dependent activities exerted by miR-204 family members in melanoma cells. Our work challenges the widely accepted "same miRNA family = same function" rule and provides a rationale for a novel treatment strategy for melanotic melanomas that is based on the combination of ERK pathway inhibitors with pigmentation inhibitors.