Co-inhibition of SMAD and MAPK signaling enhances 124I update in BRAF-mutant thyroid cancers.

Constitutive MAPK activation silences genes required for iodide uptake and thyroid hormone biosynthesis in thyroid follicular cells. Accordingly, most BRAFV600E papillary thyroid cancers (PTC) are refractory to radioiodide (RAI) therapy. MAPK pathway inhibitors rescue thyroid differentiated properties and RAI responsiveness in mice and patient subsets with BRAFV600E-mutant PTC. TGFβ also impairs thyroid differentiation and has been proposed to mediate the effects of mutant BRAF. We generated a mouse model of Braf-PTC with thyroid-specific knockout of the TgfβR1 gene to investigate the role of TGFβ on thyroid differentiated gene expression and RAI uptake in vivo. Despite appropriate loss of TgfβR1, pSmad levels remained high, indicating that ligands other than TGFβ1 were engaging this pathway. The activin ligand subunits Inhba and Inhbb were found to be overexpressed in BrafV600E mutant thyroid cancers. Treatment with follistatin, a potent inhibitor of activin, or vactosertib, which inhibits both TGFβR1 and the activin type I receptor ALK4, induced a profound inhibition of pSMAD in BrafV600E-PTCs. Blocking SMAD signaling alone was insufficient to enhance iodide uptake in the setting of constitutive MAPK activation. However, combination treatment with either follistatin or vactosertib and the MEK inhibitor CKI increased 124I uptake compared to CKI alone. In summary, activin family ligands converge to induce pSMAD in Braf-mutant PTCs. Dedifferentiation of BrafV600E-PTCs cannot be ascribed primarily to activation of SMAD. However, targeting Tgfβ/activin-induced pSMAD augmented MAPK inhibitor effects on iodine incorporation into BRAF tumor cells, indicating that these two pathways exert interdependent effects on the differentiation state of thyroid cancer cells.