Pancreatic cancer is a highly lethal malignancy with a dismal 5-year survival of less than 5%. The scarcity of early biomarkers has considerably hindered our ability to launch preventive measures for this malignancy in a timely manner. Neutrophil gelatinaseassociated lipocalin (NGAL), a 24-kDa glycoprotein, was reported to be upregulated nearly 27-fold in pancreatic cancer cells compared to normal ductal cells in a microarray analysis. Given the need for biomarkers in the early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, we investigated the expression of NGAL in tissues with the objective of examining if NGAL immunostaining could be used to identify foci of pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia, premalignant lesions preceding invasive cancer. To examine a possible correlation between NGAL expression and the degree of differentiation, we also analysed NGAL levels in pancreatic cancer cell lines with varying grades of differentiation. Although NGAL expression was strongly upregulated in pancreatic cancer, and moderately in pancreatitis, only a weak expression could be detected in the healthy pancreas. The average composite score for adenocarcinoma (4.26 ± 2.44) was significantly higher than that for the normal pancreas (1.0) or pancreatitis (1.0) (Po0.0001). Further, although both well-and moderately differentiated pancreatic cancer were positive for NGAL, poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma was uniformly negative. Importantly, NGAL expression was detected as early as the PanIN-1 stage, suggesting that it could be a marker of the earliest premalignant changes in the pancreas. Further, we examined NGAL levels in serum samples. Serum NGAL levels were above the cutoff for healthy individuals in 94% of pancreatic cancer and 62.5% each of acute and chronic pancreatitis samples. However, the difference between NGAL levels in pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer was not significant. A ROC curve analysis revealed that ELISA for NGAL is fairly accurate in distinguishing pancreatic cancer from non-cancer cases (area under curve ¼ 0.75). In conclusion, NGAL is highly expressed in early dysplastic lesions in the pancreas, suggesting a possible role as an early diagnostic marker for pancreatic cancer. Further, serum NGAL measurement could be investigated as a possible biomarker in pancreatitis and pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

MUC16/CA125 is a tumor marker currently used in clinics for the follow-up of patients with ovarian cancer. However, MUC16 expression is not entirely restricted to ovarian malignancies and has been reported in other cancers including breast cancer. Although it is well established as a biomarker, function of MUC16 in cancer remains to be elucidated. In the present study, we investigated the role of MUC16 in breast cancer and its underlying mechanisms. Interestingly, our results showed that MUC16 is overexpressed in breast cancer tissues whereas not expressed in non-neoplastic ducts. Further, stable knockdown of MUC16 in breast cancer cells (MDA MB 231 and HBL100) resulted in significant decrease in the rate of cell growth, tumorigenicity and increased apoptosis. In search of a mechanism for breast cancer cell proliferation we found that MUC16 interacts with the ezrin/radixin/moesin domain-containing protein of Janus kinase (JAK2) as demonstrated by the reciprocal immunoprecipitation method. These interactions mediate phosphorylation of STAT3 (Tyr705), which might be a potential mechanism for MUC16-induced proliferation of breast cancer cells by a subsequent co-transactivation of transcription factor c-Jun. Furthermore, silencing of MUC16 induced G2/M arrest in breast cancer cells through downregulation of Cyclin B1 and decreased phosphorylation of Aurora kinase A. This in turn led to enhanced apoptosis in the MUC16-knockdown breast cancer cells through Tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL)-mediated extrinsic apoptotic pathway with the help of c-Jun N-terminal kinase signaling. Collectively, our results suggest that MUC16 has a dual role in breast cancer cell proliferation by interacting with JAK2 and by inhibiting the apoptotic process through downregulation of TRAIL.

Mutual gliding motility A (MglA), a small Ras-like GTPase; Mutual gliding motility B (MglB), its GTPase activating protein (GAP); and Required for Motility Response Regulator (RomR), a protein that contains a response regulator receiver domain, are major components of a GTPase-dependent biochemical oscillator that drives cell polarity reversals in the bacterium Myxococcus xanthus. We report the crystal structure of a complex of M. xanthus MglA and MglB, which reveals that the C-terminal helix (Ct-helix) from one protomer of the dimeric MglB binds to a pocket distal to the active site of MglA. MglB increases the GTPase activity of MglA by reorientation of key catalytic residues of MglA (a GAP function) combined with allosteric regulation of nucleotide exchange by the Ct-helix (a guanine nucleotide exchange factor [GEF] function). The dual GAP-GEF activities of MglB accelerate the rate of GTP hydrolysis over multiple enzymatic cycles. Consistent with its GAP and GEF activities, MglB interacts with MglA bound to either GTP or GDP. The regulation is essential for cell polarity, because deletion of the Ct-helix causes bipolar localization of MglA, MglB, and RomR, thereby causing reversal defects in M. xanthus. A bioinformatics analysis reveals the presence of Ct-helix in homologues of MglB in other bacterial phyla, suggestive of the prevalence of the allosteric mechanism among other prokaryotic small Ras-like GTPases.

The mucin MUC4 is a high molecular weight transmembrane glycoprotein. It consists of a mucin-type subunit (MUC4a) and a transmembrane growth factor-like subunit (MUC4b). The mucin MUC4 is overexpressed in many epithelial malignancies including ovarian cancer, suggesting a possible role in the pathogenesis of these cancers. In this study, we investigated the functional role of MUC4 in the human ovarian cancer cell line SKOV3. The mucin MUC4 was ectopically expressed by stable transfection, and its expression was examined by western blot and confocal microscopy analyses. The in vitro studies demonstrated an enhanced motility of MUC4-expressing SKOV3 cells compared with the vector-transfected cells. The mucin MUC4 expression was associated with apparent changes in actin organisation, leading to the formation of microspike, lammelopodia and filopodia-like cellular projections. An enhanced protein expression and activation of HER2, a receptor tyrosine kinase, was also seen, although no significant change was observed in HER-2 transcript levels in the MUC4-transfected SKOV3 cells. Reciprocal co-immunoprecipitation revealed an interaction of MUC4 with HER2. Further, the MUC4-overexpressing SKOV3 cells exhibited an increase in the phosphorylation of focal adhesion kinase (FAK), Akt and ERK, downstream effectors of HER2. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that MUC4 plays a role in ovarian cancer cell motility, in part, by altering actin arrangement and potentiating HER2 downstream signalling in these cells.

No abstract