Members of the Wnt and TGF-beta superfamilies regulate both cell fate and proliferation during development and tissue maintenance. In the early amphibian embryo, the Wnt and TGF-beta superfamily signalling cascades are required for the establishment of a dorsal signalling centre, Spemann's organizer. Intracellular proteins of both pathways, upon activation, translocate to the nucleus to participate in transcription. Here we show that beta-catenin and Lef1/Tcf, which are downstream components of the Wnt signalling cascade, form a complex with Smad4, an essential mediator of signals initiated by members of the TGF-beta growth factor superfamily. In Xenopus, this interaction directly and synergistically affects expression of the twin (Xtwn) gene during formation of the organizer. This is, to our knowledge, the first demonstration of a physical interaction between TGF-beta and Wnt signalling components in vivo.

We discovered a novel somatic gene fusion, CD74-NRG1 , by transcriptome sequencing of 25 lung adenocarcinomas of never smokers. By screening 102 lung adenocarcinomas negative for known oncogenic alterations, we found four additional fusion-positive tumors, all of which were of the invasive mucinous subtype. Mechanistically, CD74-NRG1 leads to extracellular expression of the EGF-like domain of NRG1 III-β3, thereby providing the ligand for ERBB2-ERBB3 receptor complexes. Accordingly, ERBB2 and ERBB3 expression was high in the index case, and expression of phospho-ERBB3 was specifi cally found in tumors bearing the fusion ( P < 0.0001). Ectopic expression of CD74-NRG1 in lung cancer cell lines expressing ERBB2 and ERBB3 activated ERBB3 and the PI3K-AKT pathway, and led to increased colony formation in soft agar. Thus, CD74-NRG1 gene fusions are activating genomic alterations in invasive mucinous adenocarcinomas and may offer a therapeutic opportunity for a lung tumor subtype with, so far, no effective treatment. SIGNIFICANCE:CD74-NRG1 fusions may represent a therapeutic opportunity for invasive mucinous lung adenocarcinomas, a tumor with no effective treatment that frequently presents with multifocal unresectable disease. Cancer Discov; 4(4); 415-22.