The tyrosine kinase inhibitor nintedanib activates SHP-1 and induces apoptosis in triple-negative breast cancer cells

A drug approved to treat pulmonary fibrosis may help kill breast cancer cells that lack the three receptors known to fuel tumor growth. A team in Taiwan led by Kuen-Feng Chen from the National Taiwan University Hospital and Ling-Ming Tseng from the Taipei Veterans General Hospital tested the effects of the multi-kinase inhibitor nintedanib on triple-negative breast cancer in cell culture and in mouse models. They found that the drug reduced the cells' proliferative ability and increased cell death by inducing the expression of an enzyme called SHP-1 that keep down levels of the cancer-promoting protein STAT3. The researchers confirmed the importance of this pathway in patient samples, showing that SHP-1 levels are typically down and STAT3 levels up in tumor tissue. Additionally, patients whose tumors had higher SHP-1 expression generally had better outcomes.