Our findings show that upregulation of a wild-type Trop-2 has a key controlling role in human cancer growth, and that tumour development is quantitatively driven by Trop-2 expression levels. However, little is known about the regulation of expression of the TROP2 gene. Hence, we investigated the TROP2 transcription control network. TROP2 expression was shown to depend on a highly interconnected web of transcription factors: TP63/TP53L, ERG, GRHL1/Get-1 (grainyhead-like epithelial transactivator), HNF1A/TCF-1 (T-cell factor), SPI1/PU.1, WT (Wilms' tumour)1, GLIS2, AIRE (autoimmune regulator), FOXM1 (forkhead box M1) and FOXP3, with HNF4A as the major network hub. TROP2 upregulation was shown to subsequently drive the expression and activation of CREB1 (cyclic AMP-responsive-element binding protein), Jun, NF-kB, Rb, STAT1 and STAT3 through induction of the cyclin D1 and ERK (extracellular signal regulated kinase)/MEK (MAPK/ERK kinase) pathways. Growth-stimulatory signalling through NF-kB, cyclin D1 and ERK was shown to require an intact Trop-2 cytoplasmic tail. Network hubs and interacting partners are co-expressed with Trop-2 in primary human tumours, supporting a role of this signalling network in cancer growth.

A chimeric CYCLIN D1-TROP2 mRNA was isolated from human ovarian and mammary cancer cells. The CYCLIN D1-TROP2 mRNA was shown to be a potent oncogene as it transforms naïve, primary cells in vitro and induces aggressive tumor growth in vivo in cooperation with activated RAS. Silencing of the chimeric mRNA inhibits the growth of breast cancer cells. The CYCLIN D1-TROP2 mRNA was expressed by a large fraction of the human gastrointestinal, ovarian, and endometrial tumors analyzed. It is most frequently detected in intestinal cell aneuploid cancers and it is coexpressed with activated RAS oncogenes, consistent with a cooperative transforming activity in human cancers. The chimeric mRNA is a bicistronic transcript of posttranscriptional origin that independently translates the Cyclin D1 and Trop-2 proteins. This is a novel mechanism of CYCLIN D1 activation that achieves the truncation of the CYCLIN D1 mRNA in the absence of chromosomal rearrangements. This leads to a higher CYCLIN D1 mRNA stability, with inappropriate expression during the cell cycle. The stabilized CYCLIN D1 mRNA cooperates with TROP2 in stimulating the growth of the expressing cells. These findings show a novel epigenetic, oncogenic mechanism, which seems to be widespread in human cancers.

We recently reported that activation of Trop-2 through its cleavage at R87-T88 by ADAM10 underlies Trop-2–driven progression of colon cancer. However, the mechanism of action and pathological impact of Trop-2 in metastatic diffusion remain unexplored. Through searches for molecular determinants of cancer metastasis, we identified TROP2 as unique in its up-regulation across independent colon cancer metastasis models. Overexpression of wild-type Trop-2 in KM12SM human colon cancer cells increased liver metastasis rates in vivo in immunosuppressed mice. Metastatic growth was further enhanced by a tail-less, activated ΔcytoTrop-2 mutant, indicating the Trop-2 tail as a pivotal inhibitory signaling element. In primary tumors and metastases, transcriptome analysis showed no down-regulation of CDH1 by transcription factors for epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, thus suggesting that the pro-metastatic activity of Trop-2 is through alternative mechanisms. Trop-2 can tightly interact with ADAM10. Here, Trop-2 bound E-cadherin and stimulated ADAM10-mediated proteolytic cleavage of E-cadherin intracellular domain. This induced detachment of E-cadherin from β-actin, and loss of cell-cell adhesion, acquisition of invasive capability, and membrane-driven activation of β-catenin signaling, which were further enhanced by the ΔcytoTrop-2 mutant. This Trop-2/E-cadherin/β-catenin program led to anti-apoptotic signaling, increased cell migration, and enhanced cancer-cell survival. In patients with colon cancer, activation of this Trop-2–centered program led to significantly reduced relapse-free and overall survival, indicating a major impact on progression to metastatic disease. Recently, the anti-Trop-2 mAb Sacituzumab govitecan-hziy was shown to be active against metastatic breast cancer. Our findings define the key relevance of Trop-2 as a target in metastatic colon cancer.

Trop-2 is a transmembrane signal transducer that can induce cancer growth. Using antibody targeting and N-terminal Edman degradation, we show here that Trop-2 undergoes cleavage in the first thyroglobulin domain loop of its extracellular region, between residues R87 and T88. Molecular modeling indicated that this cleavage induces a profound rearrangement of the Trop-2 structure, which suggested a deep impact on its biological function. No Trop-2 cleavage was detected in normal human tissues, whereas most tumors showed Trop-2 cleavage, including skin, ovary, colon, and breast cancers. Coimmunoprecipitation and mass spectrometry analysis revealed that ADAM10 physically interacts with Trop-2. Immunofluorescence/confocal time-lapse microscopy revealed that the two molecules broadly colocalize at the cell membrane. We show that ADAM10 inhibitors, siRNAs and shRNAs abolish the processing of Trop-2, which indicates that ADAM10 is an effector protease. Proteolysis of Trop-2 at R87-T88 triggered cancer cell growth both in vitro and in vivo. A corresponding role was shown for metastatic spreading of colon cancer, as the R87A-T88A Trop-2 mutant abolished xenotransplant metastatic dissemination. Activatory proteolysis of Trop-2 was recapitulated in primary human breast cancers. Together with the prognostic impact of Trop-2 and ADAM10 on cancers of the skin, ovary, colon, lung, and pancreas, these data indicate a driving role of this activatory cleavage of Trop-2 on malignant progression of tumors.

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Poor survival of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) compromised the efficacy of stem cell therapy for myocardial infarction. The increase of exogenous reactive oxygen species (ROS) in infracted heart is one of the important factors that challenged the survival of donor MSCs. In the study we aimed to evaluate the effect of oxidative stress on the cell death of MSCs and investigate its mechanisms in order to help with the identification of new biological compounds to reduce donor cells damage. Apoptosis of MSCs were evaluated with Hoechst 33342 staining and flow cytometry analysis. The mitochondrial membrane potential of MSCs was analyzed with JC‐1 staining. Signaling pathways involved in H2O2 induced apoptosis were analyzed with Western blot. H2O2 induced apoptosis of MSCs in a dose‐ and time‐dependent manner. H2O2 induced apoptosis of MSCs via both endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondrial pathways rather than extrinsic apoptosis pathway. H2O2 caused transient rather than sustained activation of p38 and JNK with no effect on ERK1/2 pathway. P38 was involved in the regulation of early apoptosis of MSCs while JNK was involved in the late apoptosis. P38 directed both ER stress and mitochondria death pathway in the early apoptosis. In conclusion, exogenous ROS was a major factor to induce apoptosis of MSCs. Both ER stress and mitochondria death pathway were involved in the apoptosis of MSCs. H2O2 activated p38 that directed the above two pathways in the regulation of early apoptosis of MSCs while JNK was involved in the late apoptosis of MSCs. J. Cell. Biochem. 111: 967–978, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

BackgroundTraditional prognostic indicators of breast cancer, i.e. lymph node diffusion, tumor size, grading and estrogen receptor expression, are inadequate predictors of metastatic relapse. Thus, additional prognostic parameters appear urgently needed. Individual oncogenic determinants have largely failed in this endeavour. Only a few individual tumor growth drivers, e.g. mutated p53, Her-2, E-cadherin, Trops, did reach some prognostic/predictive power in clinical settings. As multiple factors are required to drive solid tumor progression, clusters of such determinants were expected to become stronger indicators of tumor aggressiveness and malignant progression than individual parameters. To identify such prognostic clusters, we went on to coordinately analyse molecular and histopathological determinants of tumor progression of post-menopausal breast cancers in the framework of a multi-institutional case series/case-control study.MethodsA multi-institutional series of 217 breast cancer cases was analyzed. Twenty six cases (12 %) showed disease relapse during follow-up. Relapsed cases were matched with a set of control patients by tumor diameter, pathological stage, tumor histotype, age, hormone receptors and grading. Histopathological and molecular determinants of tumor development and aggressiveness were then analyzed in relapsed versus non-relapsed cases. Stepwise analyses and model structure fitness assessments were carried out to identify clusters of molecular alterations with differential impact on metastatic relapse.Resultsp53, Bcl-2 and cathepsin D were shown to be coordinately associated with unique levels of relative risk for disease relapse. As many Ras downstream targets, among them matrix metalloproteases, are synergistically upregulated by mutated p53, whole-exon sequence analyses were performed for TP53, Ki-RAS and Ha-RAS, and findings were correlated with clinical phenotypes. Notably, TP53 insertion/deletion mutations were only detected in relapsed cases. Correspondingly, Ha-RAS missense oncogenic mutations were only found in a subgroup of relapsing tumors.ConclusionsWe have identified clusters of specific molecular alterations that greatly improve prognostic assessment with respect to singularly-analysed indicators. The combined analysis of these multiple tumor-relapse risk factors promises to become a powerful approach to identify patients subgroups with unfavourable disease outcome.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12885-016-2713-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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