Abstract 1568: Her2 promotes early dissemination of breast cancer by suppressing the p38 pathway through upregulation of Wip1
Authors: Wang Nan 
Published: March 2024

(a)Metastasis is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Increasing evidence shows that cancer cells can disseminate from early primary lesions that are impalpable, but the pathways are poorly understood. Her2 promotes breast cancer early dissemination by suppressing p38, but how Her2 downregulates p38 is unclear. In this study, we investigated the mechanism underlying suppression of p38 by Her2 in breast cancer early dissemination using cell models and xenograft models of early lesions of breast cancer.

(b)We studied the role of Wip1, a p38 phosphatase, in disseminating phenotypes in cell line models of breast cancer early lesions, including cell motility measured in transwell assays, cell invasion measured by percentage of organoids with outward invading cells, and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) measured by levels of EMT markers in Western blotting analysis and immunofluorescence (IF) staining assays.

(c)We demonstrate that high levels of Wip1 correlated with Her2+ status, and reduced phosphorylation of p38 and its downstream effectors MK2 and Hsp27 in tissue samples from early lesions of human breast cancer. In addition, ectopic expression of Wip1 reduced phosphorylation of p38, MK2 and Hsp27 in cell models of breast cancer early lesions.We found that Wip1 promoted migration, invasion and EMT, while Wip1 knockdown abrogated the ability of Her2 to induce these disseminating phenotypes, in cell line models of early lesion breast cancer. Thus, Wip1 induction is both sufficient, and necessary for Her2, to promote migration, invasion and EMT in early lesion breast cancer cells. In an attempt to identify the Wip1 downstream effectors involved in disseminating phenotypes, we found that ectopic expression of the constitutively active mutants of p38 reversed the ability of Wip1 to suppress MK2 and Hsp27 phosphorylation and to induce migration, invasion and EMT in early lesion breast cancer cells. These results suggest that Wip1 promotes breast cancer early dissemination by suppressing p38. We investigate the mechanism by which Her2 induces Wip1 expression. Ectopic expression of Her2 did not alter the level of Wip1 mRNA or the Wip1 protein stability, suggesting that Her2 promote Wip1 expression by regulating its translation. We are currently investigating the mechanism by which Her2 induces Wip1 translation.Moreover, inhibitors of Her2, Wip1 and Skp2 can each reduce the disseminating phenotypes in cells models of breast cancer early lesions ectopically expressing Her2, Wip1 or Skp2.

(d)Our findings identify the Her2-Wip1-p38-Mk2-Hsp27 cascade as a novel mechanism mediating breast cancer early dissemination and provide a basis for new therapies targeting early metastatic dissemination in Her2+ breast cancer using inhibitors for Her2, Wip1 or Skp2.

Citation Format: Nan Wang. Her2 promotes early dissemination of breast cancer by suppressing the p38 pathway through upregulation of Wip1 [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(6_Suppl):Abstract nr 1568.