Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: EC:2.7.10.1 (ERK)
95,504 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Apigenin is a low toxicity and non-mutagenic phytopolyphenol and protein kinase inhibitor. It exhibits anti-proliferating effects on human breast cancer cells. Here we examined several human breast cancer cell lines having different levels of HER2/neu expression and found that apigenin exhibited potent growth-inhibitory activity in HER2/neu-overexpressing breast cancer cells but was much less effective for those cells expressing basal levels of HER2/neu. Induction of apoptosis was also observed in HER2/neu-overexpressing breast cancer cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner. However, the one or more molecular mechanisms of apigenin-induced apoptosis in HER2/neu-overexpressing breast cancer cells remained to be elucidated. A cell survival pathway involving phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K), and Akt is known to play an important role in inhibiting apoptosis in response to HER2/neu-overexpressing breast cancer cells, which prompted us to investigate whether this pathway plays a role in apigenin-induced apoptosis in HER2/neu-overexpressing breast cancer cells. Our results showed that apigenin inhibits Akt function in tumor cells in a complex manner. First, apigenin directly inhibited the PI3K activity while indirectly inhibiting the Akt kinase activity. Second, inhibition of HER2/neu autophosphorylation and transphosphorylation resulting from depleting HER2/neu protein in vivo was also observed. In addition, apigenin inhibited Akt kinase activity by preventing the docking of PI3K to HER2/HER3 heterodimers. Therefore, we proposed that apigenin-induced cellular effects result from loss of HER2/neu and HER3 expression with subsequent inactivation of PI3K and AKT in cells that are dependent on this pathway for cell proliferation and inhibition of apoptosis. This implies that the inhibition of the HER2/HER3 heterodimer function provided an especially effective strategy for blocking the HER2/neu-mediated transformation of breast cancer cells. Our results also demonstrated that apigenin dissociated the complex of HER2/neu and GRP94 that preceded the depletion of HER2/neu. Apigenin-induced degradation of mature HER2/neu involves polyubiquitination of HER2/neu and subsequent hydrolysis by the proteasome.
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PMID:Apigenin induces apoptosis through proteasomal degradation of HER2/neu in HER2/neu-overexpressing breast cancer cells via the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/Akt-dependent pathway. 1460 23

The AP-1 (activator protein-1) complex, which consists of proteins of the Fos and Jun families, is thought to play an important role in the balance between cell proliferation and apoptosis, the response to genotoxic stress and cell transformation. In cells containing oncogenic Ras, the major components of AP-1 are Fra-1 and c-Jun. Signalling from Ras to AP-1 is through the Raf/MEK[mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase kinase]/ERK (extracellular signal-regulated kinase) MAP kinase pathway as sustained activation of Raf1 or Mek1 modifies AP-1 composition and activity. To analyse the potential link between the ERK-MAPK pathway and AP-1 in colon cancer, in which RAS and BRAF mutations are frequent, we have studied the regulation of AP-1 in colon carcinoma cell lines. We show that c-JUN and FRA-1 expression is dependent on ERK activity and that different thresholds of ERK activity control the expression of FRA-1. A basal activity is required to induce transcription of the FRA-1 gene, but additional higher levels of activity stabilize FRA-1 against proteasome-dependent degradation. These results provide a clear-cut example that the magnitude of ERK signalling affects the cellular response. Although we find no contribution of FRA-1 towards cell proliferation of adherent tumour cells, the high levels of FRA-1 in cells where elevated ERK activity leads to protein stabilization provide survival signals for tumour cells removed from the extracellular matrix.
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PMID:Elevated ERK-MAP kinase activity protects the FOS family member FRA-1 against proteasomal degradation in colon carcinoma cells. 1462 89

Cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) displays kinase activity predominantly in post-mitotic neurons and its physiological roles are unrelated to cell cycle progression. Cdk5 is activated by its binding to a neuron-specific activator, p35 or p39. The protein amount of p35 or p39 is a primary determinant of the Cdk5 activity in neurons, with the amount of p35 or p39 being determined by its synthesis and degradation. The expression of p35 is induced in differentiated neurons and is enhanced by extracellular stimuli such as neurotrophic factors or extracellular matrix molecules, specifically those acting on the ERK/Erg pathway. p35 is a short-lived protein and its degradation determines the life span. Degradation is mediated by the ubiquitin/proteasome system, similar to that for cyclins in proliferating cells. Autophosphorylation of p35 by Cdk5 is a signal for ubiquitination/degradation, and the degradation of p35 is triggered by glutamate treatment in cultured neurons. p35 is cleaved to p25 by calpain at the time of neuronal cell death, and this limited cleavage is suggested to be the cause of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. Active Cdk5 changes the cellular localization by cleavage of p35 to p25; p35/Cdk5 is associated with membrane or cytoskeletons, but p25/Cdk5 is a soluble protein. Cleavage also increases the life span of p25 and changes the activity or substrate specificity of Cdk5. p25/Cdk5 shows higher phosphorylating activity to tau than p35/Cdk5 in a phosphorylation site-specific manner. Phosphorylation of p35 suppresses cleavage by calpain. Thus, phosphorylation of p35 modulates its proteolytic pattern, stimulates proteasomal degradation and suppresses calpain cleavage. Phosphorylation is age dependent, as p35 is phosphorylated in foetal brains, but unphosphorylated in adult brains. Therefore, foetal phosphorylated p35 is turned over rapidly, whereas adult unphosphorylated p35 has a long life and is easily cleaved to p25 when calpain is activated. p39 is also a short-lived protein and cleaved to the N-terminal truncation form of p29 by calpain. How the metabolism of p39 is regulated, however, is a future problem to be investigated.
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PMID:The regulation of cyclin-dependent kinase 5 activity through the metabolism of p35 or p39 Cdk5 activator. 1467 9

The efficacy of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) as single agents in targeted cancer therapy has proven to be limited. Arming mAbs with a potent toxic drug could enhance their activity. Here we report that conjugating geldanamycin (GA) to the anti-HER2 mAb Herceptin improved the activity of Herceptin. The IC(50)s of the immunoconjugate H-GA were 10-200-fold lower than that of Herceptin in antiproliferative assays, depending on the cell line. The H-GA mode of action involved HER2 degradation, which was partially lactacystin sensitive and thus proteasome dependent. The linkage between GA and Herceptin remained stable in the circulation, as suggested by the pharmacokinetics of Herceptin and conjugated GA, which were almost identical and significantly different from that of free GA. Tumor uptake of Herceptin and H-GA were similar (52 +/- 7 and 43 +/- 7% of the initial injected dose per gram tissue, respectively; P = 0.077), indicating no apparent damage attributable to conjugation. Therapy experiments in xenograft-bearing mice consisted of weekly i.p. doses, 4 mg/kg for 4 months. H-GA showed a greater antitumor effect than Herceptin because it induced tumor regression in 69% of the recipients compared with 7% by Herceptin alone. Median survival time was 145 days as opposed to 78 days, and 31% of the recipients remained tumor free 2 months after therapy was terminated versus 0% in the Herceptin group. Enhancement of Herceptin activity could be of significant clinical value. In addition, the chemical linkage and the considerations in therapeutic regimen described here could be applied to other immunoconjugates for targeted therapy of a broad spectrum of cancers.
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PMID:Herceptin-geldanamycin immunoconjugates: pharmacokinetics, biodistribution, and enhanced antitumor activity. 1497 48

Rab7 is a key regulatory protein governing early to late endocytic membrane transport. In this study the proteasome alpha-subunit XAPC7 (also known as PSMA7, RC6-1, and HSPC in mammals) was identified to interact specifically with Rab7 and was recruited to multivesicular late endosomes through this interaction. The protein interaction domains were localized to the C terminus of XAPC7 and the N terminus of Rab7. XAPC7 was not found on early or recycling endosomes, but could be recruited to recycling endosomes by expression of a Rab7-(1-174)Rab11-(160-202) chimera, establishing a central role for Rab7 in the membrane recruitment of XAPC7. Although XAPC7 could be shown to associate with membranes bearing ubiquitinated cargo, overexpression had no impact on steady-state ubiquitinated protein levels. Most notably, overexpression of XAPC7 was found to impair late endocytic transport of two different membrane proteins, including EGFR known to be highly dependent on ubiquitination and proteasome activity for proper endocytic sorting and lysosomal transport. Decreased late endocytic transport caused by XAPC7 overexpression was partially rescued by coexpression of wild-type Rab7, suggesting a negative regulatory role for XAPC7. Nevertheless, Rab7 itself was not subject to XAPC7-dependent proteasomal degradation. Together the data establish the first direct molecular link between the endocytic trafficking and cytosolic degradative machineries.
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PMID:The proteasome alpha-subunit XAPC7 interacts specifically with Rab7 and late endosomes. 1499 88

The regulation of protein stability by the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway is a critical issue central to the comprehension of the molecular basis of carcinogenesis. However, ubiquitin modification of target substrates signals many cellular processes other than proteolysis that are also important for the development of cancer. It is noteworthy that many proteins studied by clinical breast cancer researchers are involved in these ubiquitin pathways. This review summarizes recent works on such proteins including cyclins, CDK inhibitors, and the SCF in cell cycle control; the breast and ovarian cancer suppressor BRCA1-BARD1; ErbB2/HER2/Neu and its ubiquitin ligase c-Cbl or CHIP; and the estrogen receptor and its downstream target Efp. Understanding these pathways may provide some hints toward developing diagnostic tools and treatments for breast cancer patients.
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PMID:Ubiquitin and breast cancer. 1502 95

The severity of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and the lack of good diagnostic markers and treatment strategies have rendered the disease a major challenge. Previous microarray analyses of HCC were restricted to the selected tissue sample sets without validation on an independent series of tissue samples. We describe an approach to the identification of a composite discriminator cassette by intersecting different microarray datasets. We studied the global transcriptional profiles of matched HCC tumor and nontumor liver samples from 37 patients using cDNA (cDNA) microarrays. Application of nonparametric Wilcoxon statistical analyses (P < 1 x 10(-6)) and the criteria of 1.5-fold differential gene expression change resulted in the identification of 218 genes, including BMI-1, ERBB3, and those involved in the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway. Elevated ERBB2 and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expression levels were detected in ERBB3-expressing tumors, suggesting the presence of ERBB3 cognate partners. Comparison of our dataset with an earlier study of approximately 150 tissue sets identified multiple overlapping discriminator markers, suggesting good concordance of data despite differences in patient populations and technology platforms. These overlapping discriminator markers could distinguish HCC tumor from nontumor liver samples with reasonable precision and the features were unlikely to appear by chance, as measured by Monte Carlo simulations. More significantly, validation of the discriminator cassettes on an independent set of 58 liver biopsy specimens yielded greater than 93% prediction accuracy. In conclusion, these data indicate the robustness of expression profiling in marker discovery using limited patient tissue specimens as well as identify novel genes that are highly likely to be excellent markers for HCC diagnosis and treatment.
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PMID:Identification of discriminators of hepatoma by gene expression profiling using a minimal dataset approach. 1505 98

Nucleophosmin-anaplastic lymphoma kinase (NPM-ALK) is a constitutively active fusion tyrosine kinase involved in lymphomagenesis of human anaplastic large cell lymphomas (ALCL), the maturation and activity of which depend on the association with the heat shock protein (hsp) 90 protein chaperone. Targeting hsp90 by the ansamycins geldanamycin and 17-allyl-amino-demethoxygeldanamycin (17-AAG) promotes degradation of several proteins through the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway, including oncogenic Raf, v-Src, erbB2, and BCR-ABL. We have previously shown that 17-AAG prevents hsp90/NPM-ALK complex formation and fosters NPM-ALK turnover, perhaps through its association with the hsp70 chaperone. Here, we show that inhibition of the proteasome activity by the potent and specific compound pyrazylcarbonyl-Phe-Leu-boronate (PS-341) blocks 17-AAG-induced down-regulation of NPM-ALK, which becomes detergent-insoluble and relocates into ubiquitin-rich perinuclear vesicles that represent aggregated polyubiquitinated forms of the protein. Kinase activity was not mandatory for proteasomal degradation of NPM-ALK, because kinase-defective NPM-ALK was even more rapidly degraded upon 17-AAG treatment. Prolonged exposure to the proteasome inhibitor was shown to trigger caspase-3-mediated apoptosis in proliferating ALCL cells at nanomolar concentrations. However, we verified that the accumulation of detergent-insoluble NPM-ALK in ALCL cells was not a spurious consequence of PS341-committed apoptosis, because caspase inhibitors prevented poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase cleavage whereas they did not affect partitioning of aggregated NPM-ALK. In line with these observations, the carboxyl hsp70-interacting ubiquitin ligase (CHIP), was shown to increase basal ubiquitination and turnover of NPM-ALK kinase, supporting a mechanism whereby NPM-ALK proceeds rapidly toward hsp70-assisted ubiquitin-dependent proteasomal degradation, when chaperoning activity of hsp90 is prohibited by 17-AAG.
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PMID:Ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation of nucleophosmin-anaplastic lymphoma kinase induced by 17-allylamino-demethoxygeldanamycin: role of the co-chaperone carboxyl heat shock protein 70-interacting protein. 1512 67

The objective of this study was to elucidate the role of the cellular proteasome on endotoxin-mediated activation of the macrophage. To study this role, THP-1 cells were stimulated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) with selective cells being pretreated with the proteasome inhibitor, lactacystin or MG-132. LPS stimulation led to the phosphorylation and degradation of IRAK, followed by activation of JNK/SAPK, ERK 1/2, and p38. Subsequently, LPS induced the degradation of IkappaB, and the nuclear activation of NF-kappaB and AP-1. Activation of these pathways was associated with the production of IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, and TNF-alpha. Proteasome inhibition with either lactacystin or MG-132 attenuated LPS-induced IRAK degradation, and enhanced activation of JNK/SAPK, ERK 1/2, and p38. Proteasome inhibition, also, led to increased LPS-induced AP-1 activation, and attenuated LPS-induced IkappaB degradation resulting in abolished NF-kappaB activation. Proteasome inhibition led to significant modulation of LPS-induced cytokine production; increased IL-10, no change in IL-6, and decreased IL-8, and TNF-alpha. Thus, this study demonstrates that cellular proteasome is critical to regulation of LPS-induced signaling within the macrophage, and inhibition of the proteasome results in a conversion to an anti-inflammatory phenotype.
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PMID:Implications of proteasome inhibition: an enhanced macrophage phenotype. 1513 96

We show that treatment of a panel of thyroid carcinoma cell lines naturally harboring the RET/PTC1 oncogene, with the RET kinase inhibitors PP1 and ZD6474, results in reversible G(1) arrest. This is accompanied by interruption of Shc and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) phosphorylation, reduced levels of G(1) cyclins, and increased levels of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p27Kip1 because of a reduced protein turnover. MAP/extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 inhibition by U0126 caused G(1) cyclins down-regulation and p27Kip1 up-regulation as well. Forced expression of RET/PTC in normal thyroid follicular cells caused a MAPK- and proteasome-dependent down-regulation of p27Kip1. Reduction of p27Kip1 protein levels by antisense oligonucleotides abrogated the G(1) arrest induced by RET/PTC blockade. Therefore, in thyroid cancer, RET/PTC-mediated MAPK activation contributes to p27Kip1 deregulation. This pathway is implicated in cell cycle progression and in response to small molecule kinase inhibitors.
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PMID:Regulation of p27Kip1 protein levels contributes to mitogenic effects of the RET/PTC kinase in thyroid carcinoma cells. 1517 89


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