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Background:The transcriptional network governing cancer metastasis is largely unexplored. Results: BACH1 regulates multiple metastasis genes and promotes breast cancer metastasis to bone. Conclusion: BACH1 is a master regulator of breast cancer bone metastasis and transcriptional network reverse engineering is helpful to identify novel functional genes of metastasis. Significance: This study provides a systems biology approach to identify master regulators of complicated biological processes.

A multifunctional prodrug, designated as TPP‐L‐GEM, is fabricated to realize image‐guided in situ tumor photodynamic therapy (PDT) with red light activatable chemotherapy. Gemcitabine is conjugated with a fluorescent photosensitizer, meso‐tetraphenylporphyrin (TPP), by a reactive oxygen species cleavable thioketal linker. Under the irradiation of low‐energy red light, TPP can generate singlet oxygen and damage tumor cells by photodynamic therapy. Simultaneously, the thioketal linkage can be cleaved by singlet oxygen and result in a cascaded gemcitabine release, causing sustained cell damage by chemotherapy. With the combination of PDT and cascaded chemotherapy, TPP‐L‐GEM shows significant tumor therapeutic efficacy in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, the inherent fluorescent property of TPP endows the TPP‐L‐GEM prodrug with noninvasive drug tracking capability, which is favorable for image‐guided tumor therapy.

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women worldwide, and metastasis represents the most devastating stage of the disease. Recent studies have revealed that microRNAs (miRNA) have critical roles to regulate cancer cell invasion and metastasis. Here we present evidence to show the role of miR-182 in breast cancer metastasis. miR-182 is upregulated in the malignant cell line variants of both human MCF10 and mouse 4T1 series. Ectopic expression of miR-182 enhanced breast cancer cell motility and invasiveness, whereas miR-182 inhibition resulted in opposite changes. In nude mice, miR-182 led to increased pulmonary colonization of cancer cells. We further demonstrated that miR-182 directly targets MIM (Missing in Metastasis), which suppresses metastasis by inhibiting ras homolog family member A (RhoA) activity and stress fiber formation in breast cancer cells. Restoring MIM expression completely blocked the pro-metastasis function of miR-182, while RhoA inhibition reversed the phenotypes of both miR-182 overexpression and MIM knockdown. In breast tumor samples, miR-182 induction is linked to downregulation of MIM, RhoA activation and poor prognosis. Hence, our data delineates the molecular pathway by which miR-182 promotes breast cancer invasion and metastasis, and may have important implication for the treatment of metastatic cancers.