Metastatic properties and genomic amplification of the tyrosine kinase gene ACK1.

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Citation

van der Horst EH, Degenhardt YY, Strelow A, Slavin A, Chinn L, Orf J, Rong M, Li S, See LH, Nguyen KQ, Hoey T, Wesche H, Powers S

Metastatic properties and genomic amplification of the tyrosine kinase gene ACK1.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Nov 1;102(44):15901-6. Epub 2005 Oct 24.

PubMed ID
16247015 [ View in PubMed
]
Abstract

Metastasis of primary tumors leads to a very poor prognosis for patients suffering from cancer. Although it is well established that not every tumor will eventually metastasize, it is less clear whether primary tumors acquire genetic alterations in a stochastic process at a late stage, which make them invasive, or whether genetic alterations acquired early in the process of tumor development drive primary tumor growth and determine whether this tumor is going to be metastatic. To address this issue, we tested genes identified in a large-scale comparative genomic hybridization analysis of primary tumor for their ability to confer metastatic properties on a cancer cell. We identified amplification of the ACK1 gene in primary tumors, which correlates with poor prognosis. We further show that overexpression of Ack1 in cancer cell lines can increase the invasive phenotype of these cells both in vitro and in vivo and leads to increased mortality in a mouse model of metastasis. Biochemical studies show that Ack1 is involved in extracellular matrix-induced integrin signaling, ultimately activating signaling processes like the activation of the small GTPase Rac. Taken together, this study supports a theory from Bernards and Weinberg [Bernards, R. & Weinberg, R. A. (2002) Nature 418, 823], which postulates that the tendency to metastasize is largely predetermined.

DrugBank Data that Cites this Article

Polypeptides
NameUniProt ID
Activated CDC42 kinase 1Q07912Details