Persistent inflammation and neovascularization are critical to cancer development. In addition to upregulation of positive control mechanisms such as overexpression of angiogenic and inflammatory factors in the cancer microenvironment, loss of otherwise normally functioning negative control mechanisms is likely to be an important attribute. Insights into the down-modulation of such negative control mechanisms remain largely unclear, however. We show here that tumor necrosis factor superfamily-15 (TNFSF15), an endogenous inhibitor of neovascularization, is a critical component of the negative control mechanism that operates in normal ovary but is missing in ovarian cancer. We show in clinical settings that TNFSF15 is present prominently in the vasculature of normal ovary but diminishes in ovarian cancer as the disease progresses. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) produced by cancer cells and monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1) produced mainly by tumor-infiltrating macrophages and regulatory T cells effectively inhibits TNFSF15 production by endothelial cells in vitro. Using a mouse syngeneic tumor model, we demonstrate that silencing TNFSF15 by topical shRNA treatments prior to and following mouse ovarian cancer ID8 cell inoculation greatly facilitates angiogenesis and tumor growth, whereas systemic application of recombinant TNFSF15 inhibits angiogenesis and tumor growth. Our findings indicate that downregulation of TNFSF15 by cancer cells and tumor infiltrating macrophages and lymphocytes is a pre-requisite for tumor neovascularization.

Intermittent oxygen deficiency in cancers promotes prolonged inflammation, continuous angiogenesis, and increased drug resistance. Hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF1) has a pivotal role in the regulation of cellular responses to oxygen deficiency. The a-subunit of HIF1 (HIF1a) is degraded in normoxia but stabilized in hypoxia. However, the molecular mechanism that controls oxygen-independent degradation of HIF1a has remained elusive. Human rhomboid family-1 (RHBDF1) is a member of a large family of nonprotease rhomboids whose function is basically unknown. We report here that RHBDF1 expression in breast cancer is highly elevated and is strongly correlated with escalated disease progression, metastasis, poor prognosis, and poor response to chemotherapy. We show that RHBDF1 interaction with the receptor of activated protein-C kinase-1 (RACK1) in breast cancer cells prevents RACK1-assisted, oxygen-independent HIF1a degradation. In addition, we show that the HIF1a-stabilizing activity of RHBDF1 diminishes when the phosphorylation of a tyrosine residue on the RHBDF1 molecule is inhibited. These findings are consistent with the view that RHBDF1 is a critical component of a molecular switch that regulates HIF1a stability in cancer cells in hypoxia and that RHBDF1 is of potential value as a new target for cancer treatment. Cancer Res; 74(10); 2719-30. Ó2014 AACR.