Protein glycosylation provides proteomic diversity in regulating protein localization, stability, and activity; it remains largely unknown whether the sugar moiety contributes to immunosuppression. In the study of immune receptor glycosylation, we showed that EGF induces programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) and receptor programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) interaction, requiring β-1,3-N-acetylglucosaminyl transferase (B3GNT3) expression in triple-negative breast cancer. Downregulation of B3GNT3 enhances cytotoxic T cell-mediated anti-tumor immunity. A monoclonal antibody targeting glycosylated PD-L1 (gPD-L1) blocks PD-L1/PD-1 interaction and promotes PD-L1 internalization and degradation. In addition to immune reactivation, drug-conjugated gPD-L1 antibody induces a potent cell-killing effect as well as a bystander-killing effect on adjacent cancer cells lacking PD-L1 expression without any detectable toxicity. Our work suggests targeting protein glycosylation as a potential strategy to enhance immune checkpoint therapy.

Summary Esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) is the most prevalent esophageal cancer type in the United States. TNFα/mTOR pathway is known to mediate the development of EAC. Additionally, aberrant activation of Gli1, downstream effector of hedgehog pathway, has been observed in EAC. In this study, we found that activated mTOR/S6K1 pathway promotes Gli1 transcriptional activity and oncogenic function through S6K1-mediated Gli1 phosphorylation at Ser84, which releases Gli1 from its endogenous inhibitor, SuFu. Moreover, elimination of S6K1 activation by mTOR pathway inhibitor enhances the killing effects of the hedgehog pathway inhibitor. Together, our results established a crosstalk between mTOR/S6K1 and the hedgehog pathways, which provides not only a mechanism for SMO-independent Gli1 activation but also a rationale for combination therapy for EAC.

The cell surface receptor tyrosine kinase HER2/neu enhances tumor metastasis. Recent studies suggest that deregulated microRNA (miRNA) expression promotes invasion and metastasis of cancer cells; we therefore explored the possibility that HER2/neu signaling induces the expression of specific miRNAs involved in this process. We identified a putative oncogenic miRNA, miR-21, whose expression is correlated with HER2/neu up-regulation and is functionally involved in HER2/neu-induced cell invasion. We show that miR-21 is up-regulated via the MAPK (ERK1/2) pathway upon stimulation of HER2/neu signaling in breast cancer cells, and overexpression of other ERK1/2 activators such as RASV12 or ID-1 is sufficient to induce miR-21 up-regulation in HER2/neu-negative breast cancer cells. Furthermore, the metastasis suppressor protein PDCD4 (programmed cell death 4) is down-regulated by miR-21 in breast cancer cells expressing HER2/neu. Our data reveal a mechanism for HER2/neu-induced cancer cell invasion via miRNA deregulation. In addition, our results identify miR-21 as a potential therapeutic target for the prevention of breast cancer invasion and metastasis.The HER2/neu (c-erbB-2) proto-oncogene encodes a transmembrane protein-tyrosine kinase growth factor receptor, p185 HER2 , which is a member of the human epidermal growth factor receptor family. HER2/neu overexpression is found in about 30% of human breast cancers and several other cancer types. HER2/neu overexpression is associated with a poor clinical outcome, including a positive correlation with metastasis (1, 2). The involvement of HER2/neu in metastasis is supported by studies demonstrating that HER2/neu increases the metastatic potential of human and murine cancer cell lines (3) and induces lung metastasis in transgenic animal models (4). Additionally, HER2/neu signaling up-regulates genes that play important roles in cell invasion and metastasis, such as cyclooxygenase-2, CXCR4, and matrix metalloproteinases (5-7). Given the complex signaling network initiated by HER2/neu overexpression in cancer cells, it is likely that HER2/neu regulates additional unidentified players involved in these processes. miRNAs 4 constitute a class of 21 or 22 nucleotides noncoding RNAs that play an important role in development and cellular processes. Aberrant expression of miRNAs is associated with cancer (8), suggesting that some miRNAs can function as tumor suppressor genes or oncogenes. miRNAs may also cooperate with the loss of tumor suppressors or overexpression oncogenes in cancer cells to contribute to a fully malignant phenotype. Up-regulation of several miRNAs in breast cancer cells, such as miR-21 and miR-10b, can increase cell invasion and metastasis (9, 10). HER2/neu signaling activates a variety of transcription factors, such as AP-1, Myc, and NF-B that alter miR-21 and other miRNA transcription (8,11,12). We therefore hypothesize that HER2/neu signaling may induce the expression of specific miRNAs, which contribute to the increased metastatic potential of HER2/neu-over...

Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) regulates various cellular functions, including tumorigenesis, and is inhibited by the tuberous sclerosis 1 (TSC1)–TSC2 complex. Here, we demonstrate that arrest-defective protein 1 (ARD1) physically interacts with, acetylates, and stabilizes TSC2, thereby repressing mTOR activity. The inhibition of mTOR by ARD1 inhibits cell proliferation and increases autophagy, thereby inhibiting tumorigenicity. Correlation between ARD1 and TSC2 abundance was apparent in multiple tumor types. Moreover, evaluation of loss of heterozygosity at Xq28 revealed allelic loss in 31% of tested breast cancer cell lines and tumor samples. Together, our findings suggest that ARD1 functions as an inhibitor of the mTOR pathway and that dysregulation of the ARD1-TSC2-mTOR axis may contribute to cancer development.

EGF induces the translocation of EGF receptor (EGFR) from the cell surface to the nucleus where EGFR activates gene transcription through its binding to an AT-rich sequence (ATRS) of the target gene promoter. However, how EGFR, without a DNA-binding domain, can bind to the gene promoter is unclear. In the present study, we show that RNA helicase A (RHA) is an important mediator for EGFRinduced gene transactivation. EGF stimulates the interaction of EGFR with RHA in the nucleus of cancer cells. The EGFR/RHA complex then associates with the target gene promoter through binding of RHA to the ATRS of the target gene promoter to activate its transcription. Knockdown of RHA expression in cancer cells abrogates the binding of EGFR to the target gene promoter, thereby reducing EGF/EGFR-induced gene expression. In addition, interruption of EGFR-RHA interaction decreases the EGFR-induced promoter activity. Consistently, we observed a positive correlation of the nuclear expression of EGFR, RHA, and cyclin D1 in human breast cancer samples. These results indicate that RHA is a DNA-binding partner for EGFR-mediated transcriptional activation in the nucleus.cyclin D1 | nuclear translocation | inducible nitric oxide synthase | transcription C ell surface EGF receptor (EGFR) has been shown to be localized in the nucleus (1-4). Nuclear EGFR has been demonstrated to contribute to cancer cell resistance to cetuximab and radiation treatment (5, 6) and to be negatively correlated with overall survival of patients with multiple cancer types (7-11). Moreover, nuclear EGFR interacts with signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3), signal transducer and activator of transcription 5A (STAT5A), E2F1, DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK), and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and plays important roles in cell transformation, proliferation, and DNA repair and replication (12-16). Nuclear EGFR regulates gene expression by binding to an AT-rich sequence (ATRS) of the gene's promoter (13,16,17). Additionally, a recent unbiased protein-DNA interactome study indicates that EGFR is a DNAbinding protein (18). However, EGFR does not contain a DNAbinding domain, and evidence supporting direct binding of EGFR to the specific DNA sequence is lacking. Thus, identifying the DNA-binding partner for EGFR is crucial for understanding how EGFR regulates gene transcription in the nucleus.RNA helicase A (RHA), the human homolog of Drosophila maleless (MLE) that increases the transcription of male X-linked genes (19), is a multifunctional protein and is conserved in Drosophila and mammals (20)(21)(22). RHA belongs to the aspartateglutamate-alanine-aspartate (DEAD) box family of proteins and has the ability to bind to RNA and DNA (23,24). RHA regulates gene transcription by interacting with transcription factors (22) or by binding directly to the target gene promoter (25). Moreover, Drosophila MLE activates rox2 transcription by binding to an ATrich region of the gene promoter (26). Interestingly, this AT-rich region contains the previo...