title: Transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta in conjunction with H-ras activation promotes malignant progression of MCF10A breast epithelial cells.
abstract: To address how transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta and oncogenic H-ras signal transduction pathways interact with each other in the malignant progression of breast epithelial cells, we investigated the role of TGF-beta signaling pathway in invasive and migrative properties of H-ras-transformed MCF10A human breast epithelial cells in this study. Here we show that TGF-beta treatment significantly enhanced invasion and migration of H-ras MCF10A cells. H-ras-mediated activation of p38 MAPK and ERK-1/2 was stimulated by TGF-beta. TGF-beta increased expression of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-2 through transcriptional activation while TGF-beta-stimulated MMP-9 up-regulation did not occur at transcription level. Activation of p38 MAPK pathway was required for TGF-beta-induced cell migration, invasion and MMP-2/-9 up-regulation, indicating a critical role of p38 MAPK signaling in TGF-beta-promoted tumor progression of H-ras-activated cells. ERKs signaling was also crucial for TGF-beta-enhanced invasive and migrative phenotypes but the up-regulation of MMP-2/-9 was not dependent on ERKs activity. Taken together, we show that TGF-beta promotes H-ras-mediated cell migration and invasive phenotypes in which p38 MAPK and ERKs signaling pathways are involved. Our findings revealing how H-ras and TGF-beta signal pathways interact with each other in MCF10A human breast cells may provide an insight into molecular mechanisms for contribution of TGF-beta to a malignant progression of breast cancer in collaboration with activated H-ras.
authors.affiliation: College of Pharmacy, Duksung Women's University, Seoul 132-714, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Eun-Sook
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Mi-Sung
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Aree
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Moon
mesh_terms: D002460:Cell Line; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic; D004789:Enzyme Activation; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D011905:Genes, ras; D006801:Humans; D042361:Mammary Glands, Human / Q000201:enzymology / Q000473:pathology*; D020928:Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases / Q000378:metabolism; D016212:Transforming Growth Factor beta / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D016212:Transforming Growth Factor beta; D020928:Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases