Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0178874 (tumor progression)
 40,807 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Aberrant expression and mutations of thyroid hormone receptor genes (TRs) are closely associated with several types of human cancers. To test the hypothesis that TRs could function as tumor suppressors, we took advantage of mice with deletion of all functional TRs (TRalpha1(-/-)TRbeta(-/-) mice). As these mice aged, they spontaneously developed follicular thyroid carcinoma with pathological progression from hyperplasia to capsular invasion, vascular invasion, anaplasia and metastasis to the lung, similar to human thyroid cancer. Detailed molecular analysis revealed that known tumor promoters such as pituitary tumor-transforming gene were activated and tumor suppressors such as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma and p53 were suppressed during carcinogenesis. In addition, consistent with the human cancer, AKT-mTOR-p70(S6K) signaling and vascular growth factor and its receptor were activated to facilitate tumor progression. This report presents in vivo evidence that functional loss of both TRalpha1 and TRbeta genes promotes tumor development and metastasis. Thus, TRs could function as tumor suppressors in a mouse model of metastatic follicular thyroid cancer.
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PMID:Thyroid hormone receptors are tumor suppressors in a mouse model of metastatic follicular thyroid carcinoma. 2006 85

Thyroid cancer is on the rise. Novel approaches are needed to improve the outcome of patients with recurrent and advanced metastatic thyroid cancers. FDA approval of suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA; vorinostat), an inhibitor of histone deacetylase, for the treatment of hematological malignancies led to the clinical trials of vorinostat for advanced thyroid cancer. However, patients were resistant to vorinostat treatment. To understand the molecular basis of resistance, we tested the efficacy of SAHA in two mouse models of metastatic follicular thyroid cancer: Thrb(PV/PV) and Thrb(PV/PV)Pten(+/-) mice. In both, thyroid cancer is driven by overactivation of PI3K-AKT signaling. However, the latter exhibit more aggressive cancer progression due to haplodeficiency of the tumor suppressor, the Pten gene. SAHA had no effects on thyroid cancer progression in Thrb(PV/PV) mice, indicative of resistance to SAHA. Unexpectedly, thyroid cancer progressed in SAHA-treated Thrb(PV/PV)Pten(+/-) mice with accelerated occurrence of vascular invasion, anaplastic foci, and lung metastasis. Molecular analyses showed further activated PI3K-AKT in thyroid tumors of SAHA-treated Thrb(PV/PV)Pten(+/-) mice, resulting in the activated effectors, p-Rb, CDK6, p21(Cip1), p-cSrc, ezrin, and matrix metalloproteinases, to increase proliferation and invasion of tumor cells. Single-molecule DNA analysis indicated that the wild-type allele of the Pten gene was progressively lost, whereas carcinogenesis progressed in SAHA-treated Thrb(PV/PV)Pten(+/-) mice. Thus, this study has uncovered a novel mechanism by which SAHA-induced loss of the tumor suppressor Pten gene to promote thyroid cancer progression. Effectors downstream of the Pten loss-induced signaling may be potential targets to overcome resistance of thyroid cancer to SAHA.
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PMID:SAHA-induced loss of tumor suppressor Pten gene promotes thyroid carcinogenesis in a mouse model. 2726 20