Loss of epithelial organization is a hallmark of carcinomas, but whether polarity regulates tumor growth and metastasis is poorly understood. To address this issue we depleted the Par3 polarity gene by RNAi in combination with oncogenic Notch or Ras61L expression in the murine mammary gland. Par3 silencing dramatically reduced tumor latency in both models, and produced invasive and metastatic tumors that retained epithelial marker expression. Par3 depletion was associated with induction of MMP9, destruction of the extracellular matrix, and invasion, all mediated by atypical PKC-dependant JAK/Stat3 activation. Importantly, Par3 expression is significantly reduced in human breast cancers, which correlates with active aPKC and Stat3. These data identify Par3 as a regulator of signaling pathways relevant to invasive breast cancer.

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† The first two authors equally contributed to this paper.

Disruption of epithelial organization and loss of growth control are universal features of carcinomas, yet how these features are linked during cancer progression remains poorly understood. Cell polarity proteins control cellular and tissue organization and are emerging as important mediators of cancer progression. The Par3 polarity protein is a molecular scaffold that functions to recruit and spatially organize signaling factors, and was recently identified as a suppressor of breast cancer invasion and metastasis. Here we show that loss of Par3 in mammary epithelial cells promotes apoptosis and that oncogenic Notch overcomes the apoptotic signal to reveal an unexpected pro-proliferative role for loss of Par3 in mammary tumors. In this context, loss of Par3 deregulates Rac1 activity to activate Jun N-terminal Kinase (JNK)-dependent proliferation and tumor growth. Thus, we demonstrate a mechanism by which loss of Par3 promotes proliferation and tumorigenesis, which supports a tumor suppressive function for Par3 in the mammary epithelium.