Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UNIPROT:P42345 (mTOR)
 26,049 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Two distinct signaling pathways regulate the survival of interleukin-3 (IL-3)-dependent hematopoietic progenitors. One originates from the membrane-proximal portion of the cytoplasmic domain of the IL-3 receptor (betac chain), which is shared by IL-3 and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor and is involved in the regulation of Bcl-x(L) through activation of STAT5. The other pathway emanates from the distal region of the betac chain and overlaps with downstream signals from constitutively active Ras proteins. Although the latter pathway is indispensable for cell survival, its downstream targets remain largely undefined. Here we show that the expression of Bim, a member of the BH3-only subfamily of cell death activators, is downregulated by IL-3 signaling through either of two major Ras pathways: Raf/mitogen-activated protein kinase and the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/mammalian target of rapamycin. Akt/phosphokinase B does not appear to play a significant role in this regulatory cascade. Bim downregulation has important implications for cell survival, since enforced expression of this death activator at levels equivalent to those induced by cytokine withdrawal led to apoptosis even in the presence of IL-3. We conclude that Bim is a pivotal molecule in cytokine regulation of hematopoietic cell survival.
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PMID:Downregulation of Bim, a proapoptotic relative of Bcl-2, is a pivotal step in cytokine-initiated survival signaling in murine hematopoietic progenitors. 1115 72

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated dementia is a neurodegenerative syndrome characterized by cognitive decline, personality change, and motor deficits. HIV-associated encephalitis (HAE), the neuropathology responsible for HIV-associated dementia, involves the formation of multinucleated giant cells or syncytia. In this article we describe the apoptotic pathways activated in the brains of HAE-affected patients. Approximately 50% of multinuclear giant cells exhibited apoptotic DNA fragmentation as detected by the terminal dUTP nick-end labeling technique. In addition, the presence of syncytia in the frontal cortex of approximately 35% of HAE patients correlated with the number of cells expressing the HIV-1 protein p24. Histochemical and immunohistochemical analyses revealed that HAE-associated syncytia underwent apoptosis through a mitochondrial pathway previously delineated for HIV-1 envelope-elicited syncytia in vitro. We observed over-expression of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), a kinase that mediates activation of the pro-apoptotic transcription factor p53, and p53-dependent up-regulation of two effectors of mitochondrial apoptosis, namely the BH3-only proteins Puma and transglutaminase type 2 (TG2). Interestingly, although mTOR activation and Puma induction were observed in dying syncytia and neurons, IkB phosphorylation and TG2 up-regulation were only found in syncytia. These findings provide substantial new information on the cell death mechanisms that regulate HAE, suggesting an important pathogenetic role of syncytia in the disease.
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PMID:Characterization of cell death pathways in human immunodeficiency virus-associated encephalitis. 1612 50

Interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) has been used for the last 20 years in the maintenance therapy of multiple myeloma (MM), though it is only effective in some patients. Congruent with this, IFN-alpha induces apoptosis in some MM cell lines. Understanding the mechanism of IFN-alpha-induced apoptosis could be useful in establishing criteria of eligibility for therapy. Here we show that IFN-alpha-induced apoptosis in the MM cell lines U266 and H929 was completely blocked by a specific inhibitor of Jak1. The mTOR inhibitor rapamycin mitigated apoptosis in U266 but potentiated it in H929 cells. IFN-alpha induced PS exposure, DeltaPsi(m) loss and pro-apoptotic conformational changes of Bak, but not of Bax, and was fully prevented by Mcl-1 overexpression in U266 cells. IFN-alpha treatment caused the release of cytochrome c from mitochondria to cytosol and consequently, a limited proteolytic processing of caspases. Apoptosis induced by IFN-alpha was only slightly prevented by caspase inhibitors. Levels of the BH3-only proteins PUMA and Bim increased during IFN-alpha treatment. Bim increase and apoptosis was prevented by transfection with the siRNA for Bim. PUMA-siRNA transfection reduced electroporation-induced apoptosis but had no effect on apoptosis triggered by IFN-alpha. The potentiating effect of rapamycin on apoptosis in H929 cells was associated to an increase in basal and IFN-alpha-induced Bim levels. Our results indicate that IFN-alpha causes apoptosis in myeloma cells through a moderate triggering of the mitochondrial route initiated by Bim and that mTOR inhibitors may be useful in IFN-alpha maintenance therapy of certain MM patients.
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PMID:Mechanism of apoptosis induced by IFN-alpha in human myeloma cells: role of Jak1 and Bim and potentiation by rapamycin. 1715 29

Melanoma is the most lethal human skin cancer. If metastatic, it becomes very aggressive and resistant to standard modalities of anticancer treatment. During the last 10 years, several therapeutic strategies have been tested including the use of single and combined small drugs. Experimental results indicate that RAS and PI3K pathways are important for the development and maintenance of melanoma. In this study, we assessed the in vitro and in vivo inhibition potential of PI-103, a PI3K (p110alpha)/mTOR inhibitor and sorafenib, a BRAF inhibitor, as single agents and in combination in primary melanoma cell lines. Although PI-103 and sorafenib inhibited melanoma in vitro cell proliferation and viability, the inhibition of RAS pathway appeared to be more effective. The combination of the two agents in in vitro showed a synergistic effect inhibiting RAS and PI3K pathways in a cell line dependent manner. However, no cooperative effect was observed in blocking in vivo tumor growth in immunocompetent mice. In contrary to the expected, the data indicate that PI-103 induced immunosuppression promoting in vivo tumor growth and inhibiting apoptosis. Furthermore, in vitro studies examining the effects of the PI3K/mTOR inhibitor in tumor derived cell lines indicated that PI-103 induced the anti-apoptotic BH3 family proteins Mcl1, Bcl2 and Bcl(xL) favoring, the in vitro survival of sorafenib treated melanoma cells. These data certainly makes an argument for investigating unexpected effects of rational drug combinations on immunocompetent animal models prior to conducting clinical studies.
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PMID:The dual PI3K/mTOR inhibitor PI-103 promotes immunosuppression, in vivo tumor growth and increases survival of sorafenib-treated melanoma cells. 1981 Jan

Non-small cell lung cancers with activating mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) are highly responsive to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), such as gefitinib and erlotinib. Such cancers are "addicted" to EGFR, and treatment with a TKI invariably leads to down-regulation of the PI3K-AKT-mTOR and MEK-ERK signaling pathways, resulting in apoptosis. Using a dual PI3K-mTOR inhibitor, NVP-BEZ235, we evaluated whether PI3K-mTOR inhibition alone induced apoptosis in these cancers. In contrast to HER2-amplified breast cancers, we found that PI3K-mTOR inhibition did not promote substantial apoptosis in the EGFR mutant lung cancers. However, blocking both PI3K-mTOR and MEK simultaneously led to apoptosis to similar levels as the EGFR TKIs, suggesting that down-regulation of these pathways may account for much of the apoptosis promoted by EGFR inhibition. In EGFR mutant lung cancers, down-regulation of both intracellular pathways converged on the BH3 family of proteins regulating apoptosis. PI3K inhibition led to down-regulation of Mcl-1, and MEK inhibition led to up-regulation of BIM. In fact, down-regulation of Mcl-1 by siRNA was sufficient to sensitize these cancers to single-agent MEK inhibitors. Surprisingly, an AKT inhibitor did not decrease Mcl-1 levels, and when combined with MEK inhibitors, failed to induce apoptosis. Importantly, we observed that the combination of PI3K-mTOR and MEK inhibitors effectively shrunk tumors in a transgenic and xenograft model of EGFR T790M-L858R cancers. These data indicate simultaneous inhibition of PI3K-mTOR and MEK signaling is an effective strategy for treating EGFR mutant lung cancers, including those with acquired resistance to EGFR TKIs.
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PMID:Differential induction of apoptosis in HER2 and EGFR addicted cancers following PI3K inhibition. 1985 Aug 69

Hypoxia (approximately 3-0.1% oxygen) is capable of rapidly inducing, via the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF-1), a cell survival response engaging autophagy. This process is mediated by the atypical BH3-only proteins the Bcl-2/E1B 19kDa-interacting protein 3 (BNIP3/BNIP3L (NIX)) that are induced by HIF-1. These mitochondrial associated BNIP proteins also mediate mitophagy, a metabolic adaptation for survival that is able to control reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and DNA damage. In contrast, severe hypoxic conditions or anoxia (<0.1% oxygen), where the latter is often confused with physiological hypoxia, are capable of inducing a HIF-independent autophagic response, generated via an extreme nutritional stress response implicating the AMPK-mTOR and unfolded protein response (UPR) pathways. The autophagic cell death that is often observed in these extreme stress conditions should be seen as the outcome of failed adaptation.
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PMID:Hypoxia-induced autophagy: cell death or cell survival? 2002 34

Damaged mitochondria can be eliminated by autophagy, i.e. mitophagy, which is important for cellular homeostasis and cell survival. Despite the fact that a number of factors have been found to be important for mitophagy in mammalian cells, their individual roles in the process had not been clearly defined. Parkin is a ubiquitin-protein isopeptide ligase able to translocate to the mitochondria that are to be removed. We showed here in a chemical hypoxia model of mitophagy induced by an uncoupler, carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone (CCCP) that Parkin translocation resulted in mitochondrial ubiquitination and p62 recruitment to the mitochondria. Small inhibitory RNA-mediated knockdown of p62 significantly diminished mitochondrial recognition by the autophagy machinery and the subsequent elimination. Thus Parkin, ubiquitin, and p62 function in preparing mitochondria for mitophagy, here referred to as mitochondrial priming. However, these molecules were not required for the induction of autophagy machinery. Neither Parkin nor p62 seemed to affect autophagy induction by CCCP. Instead, we found that Nix was required for the autophagy induction. Nix promoted CCCP-induced mitochondrial depolarization and reactive oxygen species generation, which inhibited mTOR signaling and activated autophagy. Nix also contributed to mitochondrial priming by controlling the mitochondrial translocation of Parkin, although reactive oxygen species generation was not involved in this step. Deletion of the C-terminal membrane targeting sequence but not mutations in the BH3 domain disabled Nix for these functions. Our work thus distinguished the molecular events responsible for the different phases of mitophagy and placed Nix upstream of the events.
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PMID:Nix is critical to two distinct phases of mitophagy, reactive oxygen species-mediated autophagy induction and Parkin-ubiquitin-p62-mediated mitochondrial priming. 2057 59

Antiapoptotic Bcl-2 family members suppress both apoptosis and autophagy and are of major importance for therapy resistance of malignant gliomas. To target these molecules, we used BH3 mimetics and analyzed the molecular mechanisms of cell death induced thereby. Glioma cells displayed only limited sensitivity to single-agent treatment with the BH3 mimetics HA14-1, BH3I-2', and ABT-737, whereas the pan-Bcl-2 inhibitor (-)-gossypol efficiently induced cell death. Furthermore, (-)-gossypol potentiated cell death induced by temozolomide (TMZ) in MGMT (O(6)-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase)-negative U343 cells and, to a lesser extent, in MGMT-expressing U87 cells. (-)-Gossypol triggered translocation of light chain 3 to autophagosomes and lysosomes and cytochrome c release, but cell death occurred in the absence of lysosomal damage and effector caspase activation. Lentiviral knockdown of Beclin1 and Atg5 in U87, U343, and MZ-54 cells strongly diminished the extent of cell death induced by (-)-gossypol and combined treatment with TMZ, indicating that autophagy contributed to this type of cell death. In contrast, stable knockdown of the endogenous autophagy inhibitor mammalian target of rapamycin increased autophagic cell death. Our data suggest that pan-Bcl-2 inhibitors are promising drugs that induce caspase-independent, autophagic cell death in apoptosis-resistant malignant glioma cells and augment the action of TMZ. Furthermore, they indicate that efficient killing of glioma cells requires neutralization of Mcl-1.
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PMID:The pan-Bcl-2 inhibitor (-)-gossypol triggers autophagic cell death in malignant glioma. 2058 33

Tight transcriptional regulation, alternative splicing and/or post-translational modifications of BH3-only proteins fine-tune their proapoptotic function. In this study, we characterize the gene locus of the BH3-only protein Bmf (Bcl-2-modifying factor) and describe the generation of two major isoforms from a common transcript in which initiation of protein synthesis involves leucine-coding CUG. Bmf(CUG) and the originally described isoform, Bmf-short, display comparable binding affinities to prosurvival Bcl-2 family members, localize preferentially to the outer mitochondrial membrane and induce rapid Bcl-2-blockable apoptosis. Notably, endogenous Bmf expression is induced on forms of cell stress known to cause repression of the CAP-dependent translation machinery such as serum deprivation, hypoxia, inhibition of the PI3K/AKT pathway or mTOR, as well as direct pharmacological inhibition of the eukaryotic translation initiation factor eIF-4E. Knock down or deletion of Bmf reduces apoptosis under some of these conditions, demonstrating that Bmf can act as a sentinel for stress-impaired CAP-dependent protein translation machinery.
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PMID:BH3-only protein Bmf mediates apoptosis upon inhibition of CAP-dependent protein synthesis. 2070 76

Tumors show an increased rate of glucose uptake and utilization. For this reason, glucose analogs are used to visualize tumors by the positron emission tomography technique, and inhibitors of glycolytic metabolism are being tested in clinical trials. Upregulation of glycolysis confers several advantages to tumor cells: it promotes tumor growth and has also been shown to interfere with cell death at multiple levels. Enforcement of glycolysis inhibits apoptosis induced by cytokine deprivation. Conversely, antiglycolytic agents enhance cell death induced by radio- and chemotherapy. Synergistic effects are likely due to regulation of the apoptotic machinery, as glucose regulates activation and levels of proapoptotic BH3-only proteins such as Bim, Bad, Puma and Noxa, as well as the antiapoptotic Bcl-2 family of proteins. Moreover, inhibition of glucose metabolism sensitizes cells to death ligands. Glucose deprivation and antiglycolytic drugs induce tumor cell death, which can proceed through necrosis or through mitochondrial or caspase-8-mediated apoptosis. We will discuss how oncogenic pathways involved in metabolic stress signaling, such as p53, AMPK (adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase) and Akt/mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin), influence sensitivity to inhibition of glucose metabolism. Finally, we will analyze the rationale for the use of antiglycolytic inhibitors in the clinic, either as single agents or as a part of combination therapies.
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PMID:Sugar-free approaches to cancer cell killing. 2097 57


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