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The Ras family of small Guanosine Triphosphate (GTP)-binding proteins (G proteins) represents one of the main components of intracellular signal transduction required for normal cardiac growth, but is also critically involved in the development of cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure. The present review provides an update on the role of the H-, K- and N-Ras genes and their related pathways in cardiac diseases. We focus on cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure, where Ras has been studied the most. We also review other cardiac diseases, like genetic disorders related to Ras. The scope of the review extends from fundamental concepts to therapeutic applications. Although the three Ras genes have a nearly identical primary structure, there are important functional differences between them: H-Ras mainly regulates cardiomyocyte size, whereas K-Ras regulates cardiomyocyte proliferation. N-Ras is the least studied in cardiac cells and is less associated to cardiac defects. Clinically, oncogenic H-Ras causes Costello syndrome and facio-cutaneous-skeletal syndromes with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and arrhythmias. On the other hand, oncogenic K-Ras and alterations of other genes of the Ras-Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase (MAPK) pathway, like Raf, cause Noonan syndrome and cardio-facio-cutaneous syndromes characterized by cardiac hypertrophy and septal defects. We further review the modulation by Ras of key signaling pathways in the cardiomyocyte, including: (i) the classical Ras-Raf-MAPK pathway, which leads to a more physiological form of cardiac hypertrophy; as well as other pathways associated with pathological cardiac hypertrophy, like (ii) The SAPK (stress activated protein kinase) pathways p38 and JNK; and (iii) The alternative pathway Raf-Calcineurin-Nuclear Factor of Activated T cells (NFAT). Genetic alterations of Ras isoforms or of genes in the Ras-MAPK pathway result in Ras-opathies, conditions frequently associated with cardiac hypertrophy or septal defects among other cardiac diseases. Several studies underline the potential role of H- and K-Ras as a hinge between physiological and pathological cardiac hypertrophy, and as potential therapeutic targets in cardiac hypertrophy and failure. Graphic abstract Highlights The Ras (Rat Sarcoma) gene family is a group of small G proteins Ras is regulated by growth factors and neurohormones affecting cardiomyocyte growth and hypertrophy Ras directly affects cardiomyocyte physiological and pathological hypertrophy Genetic alterations of Ras and its pathways result in various cardiac phenotypes Ras and its pathway are differentially regulated in acquired heart disease Ras modulation is a promising therapeutic target in various cardiac conditions.

Colorectal cancer (CRC), which shows a high degree of heterogeneity, is the third most deadly cancer worldwide. Mutational activation of KRAS G12D occurs in approximately 10–12% of CRC cases, but the susceptibility of KRAS G12D -mutated CRC to the recently discovered KRAS G12D inhibitor MRTX1133 has not been fully defined. Here, we report that MRTX1133 treatment caused reversible growth arrest in KRAS G12D -mutated CRC cells, accompanied by partial reactivation of RAS effector signaling. Through a drug-anchored synthetic lethality screen, we discovered that epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibition was synthetic lethal with MRTX1133. Mechanistically, MRTX1133 treatment downregulated the expression of ERBB receptor feedback inhibitor 1 (ERRFI1), a crucial negative regulator of EGFR, thereby causing EGFR feedback activation. Notably, wild-type isoforms of RAS, including H-RAS and N-RAS, but not oncogenic K-RAS, mediated signaling downstream of activated EGFR, leading to RAS effector signaling rebound and reduced MRTX1133 efficacy. Blockade of activated EGFR with clinically used antibodies or kinase inhibitors suppressed the EGFR/wild-type RAS signaling axis, sensitized MRTX1133 monotherapy, and caused the regression of KRAS G12D -mutant CRC organoids and cell line-derived xenografts. Overall, this study uncovers feedback activation of EGFR as a prominent molecular event that restricts KRAS G12D inhibitor efficacy and establishes a potential combination therapy consisting of KRAS G12D and EGFR inhibitors for patients with KRAS G12D -mutated CRC.

Yeast and cancer cells share the unusual characteristic of favoring fermentation of sugar over respiration. We now reveal an evolutionary conserved mechanism linking fermentation to activation of Ras, a major regulator of cell proliferation in yeast and mammalian cells, and prime proto-oncogene product. A yeast mutant ( tps1∆ ) with overactive influx of glucose into glycolysis and hyperaccumulation of Fru1,6bisP, shows hyperactivation of Ras, which causes its glucose growth defect by triggering apoptosis. Fru1,6bisP is a potent activator of Ras in permeabilized yeast cells, likely acting through Cdc25. As in yeast, glucose triggers activation of Ras and its downstream targets MEK and ERK in mammalian cells. Biolayer interferometry measurements show that physiological concentrations of Fru1,6bisP stimulate dissociation of the pure Sos1/H-Ras complex. Thermal shift assay confirms direct binding to Sos1, the mammalian ortholog of Cdc25. Our results suggest that the Warburg effect creates a vicious cycle through Fru1,6bisP activation of Ras, by which enhanced fermentation stimulates oncogenic potency. Yeast and cancer cells both favor sugar fermentation in aerobic conditions. Here the authors describe a conserved mechanism from yeast to mammals where the glycolysis intermediate fructose-1,6-bisphosphate binds Cdc25/Sos1 and couples increased glycolytic flux to increased Ras proto-oncoprotein activity.

Radiotherapy is commonly used as a cytotoxic treatment of a wide variety of tumors. Interestingly, few case reports underlined its potential to induce immune-mediated abscopal effects, resulting in regression of metastases, distant from the irradiated site. These observations are rare, and apparently depend on the dose used, suggesting that dose-related cellular responses may be involved in the distant immunogenic responses. Ionizing radiation (IR) has been reported to elicit immunogenic apoptosis, necroptosis, mitotic catastrophe, and senescence. In order to link a cellular outcome with a particular dose of irradiation, we performed a systematic study in a panel of cell lines on the cellular responses at different doses of X-rays. Remarkably, we observed that all cell lines tested responded in a similar fashion to IR with characteristics of mitotic catastrophe, senescence, lipid peroxidation, and caspase activity. Iron chelators (but not Ferrostatin-1 or vitamin E) could prevent the formation of lipid peroxides and cell death induced by IR, suggesting a crucial role of iron-dependent cell death during high-dose irradiation. We also show that in K-Ras-mutated cells, IR can induce morphological features reminiscent of methuosis, a cell death modality that has been recently described following H-Ras or K-Ras mutation overexpression.

G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) mediate many critical physiological processes. Their spatial organization in plasma membrane (PM) domains is believed to encode signaling specificity and efficiency. However, the existence of domains and, crucially, the mechanism of formation of such putative domains remain elusive. Here, live-cell imaging (corrected for topography-induced imaging artifacts) conclusively established the existence of PM domains for GPCRs. Paradoxically, energetic coupling to extremely shallow PM curvature (<1 µm −1 ) emerged as the dominant, necessary and sufficient molecular mechanism of GPCR spatiotemporal organization. Experiments with different GPCRs, H-Ras, Piezo1 and epidermal growth factor receptor, suggest that the mechanism is general, yet protein specific, and can be regulated by ligands. These findings delineate a new spatiomechanical molecular mechanism that can transduce to domain-based signaling any mechanical or chemical stimulus that affects the morphology of the PM and suggest innovative therapeutic strategies targeting cellular shape. Three-dimensional imaging reveals the existence of GPCR domains at the plasma membrane of living cells. The molecular mechanism underlying this spatial organization is energetic coupling of receptors to the curvature of the plasma membrane.

RAS proteins play a role in many physiological signals transduction processes, including cell growth, division, and survival. The Ras protein has amino acids 188-189 and functions as GTPase. These proteins are switch molecules that cycle between inactive GDP-bound and active GTP-bound by guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs). KRAS is one of the Ras superfamily isoforms (N-RAS, H-RAS, and K-RAS) that frequently mutate in cancer. The mutation of KRAS is essentially performing the transformation in humans. Since most RAS proteins belong to GTPase, mutated and GTP-bound active RAS is found in many cancers. Despite KRAS being an important molecule in mostly human cancer, including pancreatic and breast, numerous efforts in years past have persisted in cancer therapy targeting KRAS mutant. This review summarizes the biological characteristics of these proteins and the recent progress in the exploration of KRAS-targeted anticancer, leading to new insight.

Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a critical event in the progression toward cancer metastasis. The intermediate filament protein vimentin is an important marker of EMT and a requisite regulator of mesenchymal cell migration. However, it is not known how vimentin functionally contributes to cancer cell invasion. Here, we report that ectopic expression of oncogenic H-Ras-V12G and Slug induces vimentin expression and migration in pre-malignant breast epithelial cells. Conversely, vimentin expression is necessary for Slug- or H-Ras-V12G-induced EMT-associated migration. Furthermore, silencing of vimentin in breast epithelial cells results in specific changes in invasiveness-related gene expression including upregulation of RAB25 (small GTPase Rab25) and downregulation of AXL (receptor tyrosine kinase Axl), PLAU (plasminogen activator, urokinase) and ITGB4 (integrin β4-subunit). Importantly, gene expression profiling analyses reveal that vimentin expression correlates positively/negatively with these genes also in multiple breast cancer cell lines and breast cancer patient samples. Focusing on the tyrosine kinase Axl, we show that induction of vimentin by EMT is associated with upregulation of Axl expression and that Axl enhances the migratory activity of pre-malignant breast epithelial cells. Using null and knock-down cells and overexpression models, we also show that regulation of breast cancer cell migration in two- and three-dimensional matrices by vimentin is Axl- dependent and that Axl functionally contributes to lung extravasation of breast cancer cells in mice. In conclusion, our data show that vimentin functionally contributes to EMT and is required for induction of Axl expression. Moreover, these results provide a molecular explanation for vimentin-dependent cancer cell migration during EMT by identifying Axl as a key proximal component in this process.

RAS genes are the most commonly mutated oncogenes in human cancers. Despite tremendous efforts over the past several decades, however, RAS-specific inhibitors remain elusive. Thus, targeting RAS remains a highly sought-after goal of cancer research. Previously, we have reported a new approach to inhibit RAS-dependent signaling and transformation in vitro by targeting the α4–α5 dimerization interface with a novel RAS-specific monobody termed NS1. Expression of NS1 inhibits oncogenic K-RAS and H-RAS signaling and transformation in vitro. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of targeting RAS dimerization as an approach to inhibit tumor formation in vivo. Using a doxycycline (DOX)-regulated NS1 expression system, we demonstrate that DOX-induced NS1 inhibited oncogenic K-RAS-driven tumor growth in vivo. Furthermore, we observed context-specific effects of NS1 on RAS-mediated signaling in 2D vs 3D growth conditions. Finally, our results highlight the potential therapeutic efficacy of targeting the α4–α5 dimerization interface as an approach to inhibit RAS-driven tumors in vivo.

Ras mutations (e.g., occur in K-Ras, N-Ras, and H-Ras) are one of the most desirable and promising drug targets in chemotherapy treatments for cancer. However, there are still no approved drugs directly targeting mutated Ras. In 2017, an artificial cyclic peptide, KRpep-2d, was discovered as the first selective inhibitor of K-Ras(G12D), the most frequent K-Ras mutation. Here, we report the generation of KS-58, a KRpep-2d derivative that is identified as a bicyclic peptide and possess unnatural amino acid structures. Our in vitro data and molecular dynamics simulations suggest that KS-58 enters cells and blocks intracellular Ras–effector protein interactions. KS-58 selectively binds to K-Ras(G12D) and suppresses the in vitro proliferation of the human lung cancer cell line A427 and the human pancreatic cancer cell line PANC-1, both of which express K-Ras(G12D). Moreover, KS-58 exhibits anti-cancer activity when given as an intravenous injection to mice with subcutaneous or orthotropic PANC-1 cell xenografts. The anti-cancer activity is further improved by combination with gemcitabine. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of K-Ras(G12D)-selective inhibitory peptide presenting in vivo anti-cancer activity. KS-58 is an attractive lead molecule for the development of novel cancer drugs that target K-Ras(G12D).

Cancer mutations in Ras occur predominantly at three hotspots: Gly 12, Gly 13, and Gln 61. Previously, we reported that deep mutagenesis of H-Ras using a bacterial assay identified many other activating mutations (Bandaru et al., 2017). We now show that the results of saturation mutagenesis of H-Ras in mammalian Ba/F3 cells correlate well with the results of bacterial experiments in which H-Ras or K-Ras are co-expressed with a GTPase-activating protein (GAP). The prominent cancer hotspots are not dominant in the Ba/F3 data. We used the bacterial system to mutagenize Ras constructs of different stabilities and discovered a feature that distinguishes the cancer hotspots. While mutations at the cancer hotspots activate Ras regardless of construct stability, mutations at lower-frequency sites (e.g. at Val 14 or Asp 119) can be activating or deleterious, depending on the stability of the Ras construct. We characterized the dynamics of three non-hotspot activating Ras mutants by using NMR to monitor hydrogen-deuterium exchange (HDX). These mutations result in global increases in HDX rates, consistent with destabilization of Ras. An explanation for these observations is that mutations that destabilize Ras increase nucleotide dissociation rates, enabling activation by spontaneous nucleotide exchange. A further stability decrease can lead to insufficient levels of folded Ras – and subsequent loss of function. In contrast, the cancer hotspot mutations are mechanism-based activators of Ras that interfere directly with the action of GAPs. Our results demonstrate the importance of GAP surveillance and protein stability in determining the sensitivity of Ras to mutational activation.