Abstract
We have shown previously that the AKT2 pathway is essential for cell survival and important in malignant transformation. In this study, we demonstrate elevated kinase levels of AKT2 and phosphatidylinositol-3-OH kinase (PI3K) in 32 of 80 primary breast carcinomas. The majority of the cases with the activation are estrogen receptor α (ERα) positive, which prompted us to examine whether AKT2 regulates ERα activity. We found that constitutively activated AKT2 or AKT2 activated by epidermal growth factor or insulin-like growth factor-1 promotes the transcriptional activity of ERα. This effect occurred in the absence or presence of estrogen. Activated AKT2 phosphorylates ERα in vitro and in vivo, but it does not phosphorylate a mutant ERα in which ser-167 was replaced by Ala. The PI3K inhibitor, wortmannin, abolishes both the phosphorylation and transcriptional activity of ERα induced by AKT2. However, AKT2-induced ERα activity was not inhibited by tamoxifen but was completely abolished by ICI 164,384, implicating that AKT2-activated ERα contributes to tamoxifen resistance. Moreover, we found that ERα binds to the p85α regulatory subunit of PI3K in the absence or presence of estradiol in epithelial cells and subsequently activates PI3K/AKT2, suggesting ERα regulation of PI3K/AKT2 through a nontranscriptional and ligand-independent mechanism. These data indicate that regulation between the ERα and PI3K/AKT2 pathway (ERα-PI3K/AKT2-ERα) may play an important role in pathogenesis of human breast cancer and could contribute to ligand-independent breast cancer cell growth.
Footnotes
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The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
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↵1 Supported by Grants from NIH CA77935 and Department of Defense OC990075.
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↵2 To whom requests for reprints should be addressed, at Department of Pathology and Programs of Molecular Oncology and Drug Discovery, University of South Florida College of Medicine, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, 12901 Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, MDC Box 11, Tampa, FL 33612. Phone: (813) 974-8595; Fax: (813) 974-5536; E-mail: jcheng{at}hsc.usf.edu
- Received May 7, 2001.
- Accepted July 15, 2001.
- ©2001 American Association for Cancer Research.
Volume 61, Issue 16
