The last decades have witnessed an exponential increase in our knowledge of Rho GTPase signaling network which further highlighted the cross talk between these proteins and the complexity of their signaling pathways. In this review, we summarize the upstream and downstream players from Rho GTPases that are mainly involved in actin polymerization leading to cell motility and potentially playing a role in cancer cell metastasis.

We have investigated the effects of inhibiting the expression of cofilin to understand its role in protrusion dynamics in metastatic tumor cells, in particular. We show that the suppression of cofilin expression in MTLn3 cells (an apolar randomly moving amoeboid metastatic tumor cell) caused them to extend protrusions from only one pole, elongate, and move rectilinearly. This remarkable transformation was correlated with slower extension of fewer, more stable lamellipodia leading to a reduced turning frequency. Hence, the loss of cofilin caused an amoeboid tumor cell to assume a mesenchymal-type mode of movement. These phenotypes were correlated with the loss of uniform chemotactic sensitivity of the cell surface to EGF stimulation, demonstrating that to chemotax efficiently, a cell must be able to respond to chemotactic stimulation at any region on its surface. The changes in cell shape, directional migration, and turning frequency were related to the re-localization of Arp2/3 complex to one pole of the cell upon suppression of cofilin expression.

We examined the role of the actin nucleation promoters neural Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein (N-WASP) and WAVE2 in cell protrusion in response to epidermal growth factor (EGF), a key regulator in carcinoma cell invasion. We found that WAVE2 knockdown (KD) suppresses lamellipod formation and increases filopod formation, whereas N-WASP KD has no effect. However, simultaneous KD of both proteins results in the formation of large jagged protrusions with lamellar properties and increased filopod formation. This suggests that another actin nucleation activity is at work in carcinoma cells in response to EGF. A mammalian Diaphanous–related formin, mDia1, localizes at the jagged protrusions in double KD cells. Constitutively active mDia1 recapitulated the phenotype, whereas inhibition of mDia1 blocked the formation of these protrusions. Increased RhoA activity, which stimulates mDia1 nucleation, was observed in the N-WASP/WAVE2 KD cells and was shown to be required for the N-WASP/WAVE2 KD phenotype. These data show that coordinate regulation between the WASP family and mDia proteins controls the balance between lamellar and lamellipodial protrusion activity.

The Phoenicians were the dominant traders in the Mediterranean Sea two thousand to three thousand years ago and expanded from their homeland in the Levant to establish colonies and trading posts throughout the Mediterranean, but then they disappeared from history. We wished to identify their male genetic traces in modern populations. Therefore, we chose Phoenician-influenced sites on the basis of well-documented historical records and collected new Y-chromosomal data from 1330 men from six such sites, as well as comparative data from the literature. We then developed an analytical strategy to distinguish between lineages specifically associated with the Phoenicians and those spread by geographically similar but historically distinct events, such as the Neolithic, Greek, and Jewish expansions. This involved comparing historically documented Phoenician sites with neighboring non-Phoenician sites for the identification of weak but systematic signatures shared by the Phoenician sites that could not readily be explained by chance or by other expansions. From these comparisons, we found that haplogroup J2, in general, and six Y-STR haplotypes, in particular, exhibited a Phoenician signature that contributed > 6% to the modern Phoenician-influenced populations examined. Our methodology can be applied to any historically documented expansion in which contact and noncontact sites can be identified.

We previously proposed a model of Class IA PI3K regulation in which p85 inhibition of p110␣ requires (i) an inhibitory contact between the p85 nSH2 domain and the p110␣ helical domain, and (ii) a contact between the p85 nSH2 and iSH2 domains that orients the nSH2 so as to inhibit p110␣. We proposed that oncogenic truncations of p85 fail to inhibit p110 due to a loss of the iSH2-nSH2 contact. However, we now find that within the context of a minimal regulatory fragment of p85 (the nSH2-iSH2 fragment, termed p85ni), the nSH2 domain rotates much more freely ( c Ϸ12.7 ns) than it could if it were interacting rigidly with the iSH2 domain. These data are not compatible with our previous model. We therefore tested an alternative model in which oncogenic p85 truncations destabilize an interface between the p110␣ C2 domain (residue N345) and the p85 iSH2 domain (residues D560 and N564). p85ni-D560K/N564K shows reduced inhibition of p110␣, similar to the truncated p85ni-572 STOP . Conversely, wild-type p85ni poorly inhibits p110␣N345K. Strikingly, the p110␣N345K mutant is inhibited to the same extent by the wild-type or truncated p85ni, suggesting that mutation of p110␣-N345 is not additive with the p85ni-572 STOP mutation. Similarly, the D560K/N564K mutation is not additive with the p85ni-572 STOP mutant for downstream signaling or cellular transformation. Thus, our data suggests that mutations at the C2-iSH2 domain contact and truncations of the iSH2 domain, which are found in human tumors, both act by disrupting the C2-iSH2 domain interface.cancer ͉ glioblastoma ͉ phosphoinositide 3-kinase ͉ PIK3CA P I 3-kinases are important cellular regulators of growth, survival, and motility, and deregulation of PI 3-kinase signaling contributes to cancer and other human diseases (1). Class IA PI 3-kinases, which produce PI[3,4,5]P3 in intact cells (2), are obligate heterodimers of a regulatory subunit (p85␣, p85␤, p55␣, p50␣, or p55␥) and a catalytic subunit (p110␣, p110␤, or p110␦) (reviewed in ref.3). The regulatory subunits have two major functions: they stabilize the catalytic subunits against thermal denaturation, and they maintain the catalytic subunit in an inhibited, low activity state (4, 5).p85 and p110 are both multidomain proteins that bind to each other and to upstream activators such as Rac and Cdc42, Ras, and tyrosine phosphorylated receptors and adapters (reviewed in ref. 6). p85 contains an SH3 domain, a Rac/Cdc42-binding domain homologous to a GAP domain in the BCR gene product, and two SH2 domains that flank an antiparallel coiled coil domain (the iSH2 domain). While NMR, EPR, and crystal structures have been obtained for the individual domains (7-15), there are currently no structures that define how these domains are arranged in space. The p110␣ catalytic subunit has been better defined, with structures of the N-terminal adapter-binding domain (ABD) or the entire p110␣ bound to the coiled coil (iSH2) domain of p85 (15,16). Like the related Class IB catalytic subunit p110␥ (17), p110␣ contains Ras-binding, C2, ...