Journal Article

Metastatic Properties and Genomic Amplification of the Tyrosine Kinase Gene ACK1

Edward Htun van der Horst, McKnight, Steven L., Slavin, Anthony, Lawrence Chinn, Jessica Orf, Li, Shyun, Rong, Minqing, Wesche, Holger, Powers, Scott, Lei-Hoon See, Strelow, Astrid, Hoey, Timothy, Yan Y. Degenhardt, Ken Q. C. Nguyen

2005

Overview

Metastasis of primary tumors leads to a very poor prognosis for patients suffering from cancer. Although it is well established that not every tumor will eventually metastasize, it is less clear whether primary tumors acquire genetic alterations in a stochastic process at a late stage, which make them invasive, or whether genetic alterations acquired early in the process of tumor development drive primary tumor growth and determine whether this tumor is going to be metastatic. To address this issue, we tested genes identified in a large-scale comparative genomic hybridization analysis of primary tumor for their ability to confer metastatic properties on a cancer cell. We identified amplification of the ACK1 gene in primary tumors, which correlates with poor prognosis. We further show that overexpression of Ack1 in cancer cell lines can increase the invasive phenotype of these cells both in vitro and in vivo and leads to increased mortality in a mouse model of metastasis. Biochemical studies show that Ack1 is involved in extracellular matrix-induced integrin signaling, ultimately activating signaling processes like the activation of the small GTPase Rac. Taken together, this study supports a theory from Bernards and Weinberg [Bernards, R. & Weinberg, R. A. (2002) Nature 418, 823], which postulates that the tendency to metastasize is largely predetermined.

• Publisher: National Academy of Sciences,National Acad Sciences
• Subject: Animals / Biological Sciences / Cancer / Cell Line, Tumor / Cell lines / Cellular biology / Crk-Associated Substrate Protein - metabolism / DNA / Enzymes / Gene Amplification / Gene Expression Profiling / Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic / Genes / Genotype & phenotype / Human genetics / Humans / Integrin alpha3beta1 - metabolism / Lung Neoplasms - secondary / Lungs / Metastasis / Mice / Neoplasm Metastasis - genetics / Neoplasm Transplantation / Phosphorylation / Prognosis / Prostate cancer / Protein-Tyrosine Kinases - genetics / Protein-Tyrosine Kinases - metabolism / Protein-Tyrosine Kinases - physiology / rac GTP-Binding Proteins - metabolism / Signal Transduction / Stochastic processes / Transplantation, Heterologous / Tumor cell line / Tumor Cells, Cultured / Tumors