Abstract PD3-01: Inducible nitric oxide synthase activates PI3K/Akt signaling via PTEN S-nitrosylation in triple-negative breast cancer
Authors: Reddy Tejaswini P. , Guzman-Rojas Liliana , Rosato Roberto R. , Qian Wei , Zhao Hong , Chang Jenny C. 
Published: March 2022

Our previous findings have shown that increased inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression is a poor prognostic indicator and associated with worse overall survival in TNBC patients. Growing evidence has also suggested that hyperactivation of the phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K) survival signaling pathway is one of the most common oncogenic aberrations in TNBC. Nitric oxide (NO) is a unique molecule in its ability to target multiple oncogenic pathways in a spatial and temporal manner, such as PI3K, extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), β-catenin pathway, transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) signaling, and hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF). This study investigates the role of NO in PI3K-Akt pathway activation in human TNBC cells, in conditions with extracellular NO donor exposure and increased intracellular iNOS (NOS2) expression. TNBC cell lines BT549, HCC1937, Hs578T, SUM159, MDA-MB-231, and BT-20 were exposed to the NO donor DETA NONOate at increasing concentrations (0-500 µM) for 12 hours. Significant elevation in phosphorylation of Akt (Ser473 and Thr308) in response to increase NO donor concentration was found only in cell lines with wild-type PTEN and PIK3R1, such as SUM159, MDA-MB-231, and BT20. To evaluate whether NO-induced activation of Akt was PI3K-dependent, SUM159 (wild-type PTEN) and HCC1937 (PTEN mutant) cells were also pre-treated with PI3K inhibitor alpelisib before NO exposure. PI3K inhibition was only able to eliminate basal phospho-Akt and prevent NO-induced Akt activation in the SUM159 cell line. Furthermore, compared to vehicle control treated cells, we found that NO donor-induced activation enhanced phosphorylation in 15/18 Akt signaling proteins in SUM159 cells (PTEN intact) and 3/18 Akt signaling proteins in HCC1937 cells (PTEN loss). In Hs578T cells in which NOS2 was either overexpressed or knocked down via lentiviral transduction, we found that enhanced expression of NOS2 was associated with increased p-Akt expression and knock-down of NOS2 led to reduced p-Akt. This result suggests that iNOS, as opposed to other NOS isoforms, is more associated with modulating PI3K signaling in TNBC.We also analyzed TNBC data from The Cancer Genome Atlas and found that patients with positive iNOS mRNA expression had significantly higher phospho-Akt (Ser473 and Thr308) [p≤0.0001] expression compared to patients with no iNOS expression. When we stratified this patient cohort based on both iNOS and PTEN expression, we only found significantly higher phospho-Akt (Ser473 and Thr308) [p≤0.01] expression in patients with positive iNOS and PTEN expression, supporting the hypothesis that NO may impair PTEN’s function as a PI3K antagonist. Ongoing studies are directed to investigate mechanisms of iNOS-PTEN physical interactions, iNOS-dependent post-translational modifications to PTEN, and whether iNOS and PTEN are dual prognostic markers in TNBC patients.

Citation Format: Tejaswini P. Reddy, Liliana Guzman-Rojas, Roberto R. Rosato, Wei Qian, Hong Zhao, Jenny C. Chang. Inducible nitric oxide synthase activates PI3K/Akt signaling via PTEN S-nitrosylation in triple-negative breast cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2021 Dec 7-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(4 Suppl):Abstract nr PD3-01.