TY - JOUR
T1 - Candidate antimetastasis drugs suppress the metastatic capacity of breast cancer cells by reducing membrane fluidity
AU - Zhao, Weina
AU - Prijic, Sara
AU - Urban, Bettina C.
AU - Tisza, Michael J.
AU - Zuo, Yan
AU - Li, Lin
AU - Tan, Zhi
AU - Chen, Xiaoling
AU - Mani, Sendurai A.
AU - Chang, Jeffrey T.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 American Association for Cancer Research.
PY - 2016/4/1
Y1 - 2016/4/1
N2 - Despite the high mortality from metastatic cancer, therapeutic targets to prevent metastasis are limited. Efforts to identify genetic aberrations that predispose tumors to metastasis have been mostly unsuccessful. To understand the nature of candidate targets for metastatic disease, we performed an in silico screen to identify drugs that can inhibit a gene expression signature associated with epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Compounds discovered through this method, including those previously identified, appeared to restrict metastatic capacity through a common mechanism, the ability to modulate the fluidity of cell membranes. Treatment of breast cancer cell lines with the putative antimetastasis agents reduced membrane fluidity, resulting in decreased cell motility, stem celllike properties, and EMT in vitro, and the drugs also inhibited spontaneous metastasis in vivo. When fluidity was unchanged, the antimetastasis compounds could no longer restrict metastasis, indicating a causal association between fluidity and metastasis. We further demonstrate that fluidity can be regulated by cellular cholesterol flux, as the cholesterol efflux channel ABCA1 potentiated metastatic behaviors in vitro and in vivo. The requirement for fluidity was further supported by the finding in breast cancer patients that ABCA1 was overexpressed in 41% of metastatic tumors, reducing time to metastasis by 9 years. Collectively, our findings reveal increased membrane fluidity as a necessary cellular feature of metastatic potential that can be controlled by many currently available drugs, offering a viable therapeutic opportunity to prevent cancer metastasis.
AB - Despite the high mortality from metastatic cancer, therapeutic targets to prevent metastasis are limited. Efforts to identify genetic aberrations that predispose tumors to metastasis have been mostly unsuccessful. To understand the nature of candidate targets for metastatic disease, we performed an in silico screen to identify drugs that can inhibit a gene expression signature associated with epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Compounds discovered through this method, including those previously identified, appeared to restrict metastatic capacity through a common mechanism, the ability to modulate the fluidity of cell membranes. Treatment of breast cancer cell lines with the putative antimetastasis agents reduced membrane fluidity, resulting in decreased cell motility, stem celllike properties, and EMT in vitro, and the drugs also inhibited spontaneous metastasis in vivo. When fluidity was unchanged, the antimetastasis compounds could no longer restrict metastasis, indicating a causal association between fluidity and metastasis. We further demonstrate that fluidity can be regulated by cellular cholesterol flux, as the cholesterol efflux channel ABCA1 potentiated metastatic behaviors in vitro and in vivo. The requirement for fluidity was further supported by the finding in breast cancer patients that ABCA1 was overexpressed in 41% of metastatic tumors, reducing time to metastasis by 9 years. Collectively, our findings reveal increased membrane fluidity as a necessary cellular feature of metastatic potential that can be controlled by many currently available drugs, offering a viable therapeutic opportunity to prevent cancer metastasis.
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U2 - 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-15-1970
DO - 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-15-1970
M3 - Article
C2 - 26825169
AN - SCOPUS:84963722238
SN - 0008-5472
VL - 76
SP - 2037
EP - 2049
JO - Cancer Research
JF - Cancer Research
IS - 7
ER -