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    The MMTV/c-myc transgene and p53 null alleles collaborate to induce T-cell lymphomas, but not mammary carcinomas in transgenic mice.
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    The ARF and p53 tumor suppressors mediate Myc-induced apoptosis and suppress lymphoma development in Eμ-myc transgenic mice. Here we report that the proapoptotic Bcl-2 family member Bax also mediates apoptosis triggered by Myc and inhibits Myc-induced lymphomagenesis. Bax-deficient primary pre-B cells are resistant to the apoptotic effects of Myc, and Bax loss accelerates lymphoma development in Eμ-myc transgenics in a dose-dependent fashion. Eighty percent of lymphomas arising in wild-type Eμ-myc transgenics have alterations in the ARF-Mdm2-p53 tumor suppressor pathway characterized by deletions in ARF, mutations or deletions of p53, and overexpression of Mdm2. The absence of Bax did not alter the frequency of biallelic deletion of ARF in lymphomas arising in Eμ-myc transgenic mice or the rate of tumorigenesis in ARF-null mice. Furthermore, Mdm2 was overexpressed at the same frequency in lymphomas irrespective ofBax status, suggesting that Bax resides in a pathway separate from ARF and Mdm2. Strikingly, lymphomas fromBax-null Eμ-myc transgenics lackedp53 alterations, whereas 27% of the tumors in Bax +/− Eμ-myctransgenic mice contained p53 mutations or deletions. Thus, the loss of Bax eliminates the selection ofp53 mutations and deletions, but not ARF deletions or Mdm2 overexpression, during Myc-induced tumorigenesis, formally demonstrating that Myc-induced apoptotic signals through ARF/Mdm2 and p53 must bifurcate: p53 signals through Bax, whereas this is not necessarily the case for ARF and Mdm2.
    Bcl-2-associated X protein
    Our previous studies have shown that HOXB7 mRNA is overexpressed in approximately 50% of invasive breast carcinomas and promotes tumor progression in breast cancer cells grown as xenografts in mice. In silico analysis of published microarray data showed that high levels of HOXB7 predict a poor outcome in HER-2-positive (P = 0.046), but not in HER-2-negative breast cancers (P = 0.94). To study the function of HOXB7 in vivo in the context of HER-2 overexpression, we generated mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV)-Hoxb7 transgenic mice, and then crossed them with MMTV-HER-2/neu transgenic mice. In the mice carrying both Hoxb7 and HER-2/neu transgenes, Hoxb7 plays a dual role in mammary tumorigenesis. In double transgenic mice, overexpression of Hoxb7 delayed tumor onset and lowered tumor multiplicity. However, consistent with the clinical data, once the tumors appeared, their growth was faster and metastasis to the lungs occurred at a higher frequency. Our data show, for the first time, that deregulated expression of Hoxb7 in mammary tumor cells can significantly modulate HER-2/neu-oncogene induced tumorigenesis in vivo.
    Mammary tumor
    Tumor progression
    Tumor initiation
    Pharmacological inactivation of oncogenes is being investigated as a possible therapeutic strategy for cancer. One potential drawback is that cessation of such therapy may allow reactivation of the oncogene and tumor regrowth. We used a conditional transgenic mouse model for MYC-induced tumorigenesis to demonstrate that brief inactivation of MYC results in the sustained regression of tumors and the differentiation of osteogenic sarcoma cells into mature osteocytes. Subsequent reactivation of MYC did not restore the cells' malignant properties but instead induced apoptosis. Thus, brief MYC inactivation appears to cause epigenetic changes in tumor cells that render them insensitive to MYC-induced tumorigenesis. These results raise the possibility that transient inactivation of MYC may be an effective therapy for certain cancers.
    Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-myc
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    The expression of the proto-oncogene c-myc is frequently deregulated, via multiple mechanisms, in human breast cancers. Deregulated expression of c-myc contributes to mammary epithelial cell transformation and is causally involved in mammary tumorigenesis in MMTV-c-myc transgenic mice. c-Myc is known to promote cellular proliferation, apoptosis, genomic instability and tumorigenesis in several distinct tissues, both in vivo and in vitro. Expression of the proapoptotic regulatory gene bax is reduced or absent in human breast cancers, and c-Myc has been shown to regulate the expression of Bax, as well as cooperate with Bax in controlling apoptosis in a fibroblast model. Additionally, loss of bax reduces c-Myc-induced apoptosis in lymphoid cells and increases c-Myc-mediated lymphomagenesis in vivo. In order to assess whether loss of bax could influence c-Myc-induced apoptosis and tumorigenesis in the mammary gland in vivo, we generated MMTV-c-myc transgenic mice in which neither, one, or both wild-type alleles of bax were eliminated. Haploid loss of bax in MMTV-c-myc transgenic mice resulted in significantly reduced mammary tumour apoptosis. As anticipated for an apoptosis-regulatory gene, loss of the wild-type bax alleles did not significantly alter cellular proliferation in either mammary adenocarcinomas or dysplastic mammary tissues. However, in contrast to c-Myc-mediated lymphomagenesis, loss of one or both alleles of bax in MMTV-c-myc transgenic mice did not significantly enhance mammary tumorigenesis, despite evidence that haploid loss of bax might modestly increase mammary tumour multiplicity. Our results demonstrate that Bax contributes significantly to c-Myc-induced apoptosis in mammary tumours. In addition, they suggest that in contrast to c-Myc-induced lymphomagenesis, mammary tumorigenesis induced by deregulated c-myc expression requires some amount of Bax expression.
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    Abstract Gene amplification and mutations of cMET have been reported in a wide variety of tumors, including colorectal, lung, renal, liver, thyroid, and breast cancer. cMET(T1010I) mutation occurred in 5.2% out of 148 sibling pairs diagnosed with colorectal cancer in one study. This germline mutation occurs in about 1% of breast cancer patients, but its frequency increases to 2% in metastatic breast cancer. Furthermore, 16% of breast cancer cases with PI3KCA mutations have co-mutations of the cMET oncogene. To determine the functional consequences of this germline mutation and elucidate the molecular mechanisms of tumorigenesis induced by its oncogenic mutant protein, we developed a transgenic mouse model expressing human cMET(T1010I) under the control of a Tet-responsive promoter. MMTV promoter - directed expression of reverse tetracycline-controlled transactivator (rtTA) turns on the expression of the cMET(T1010I) transgene in murine mammary glands upon tetracycline administration. Thirty percent of these mice developed early onset mammary carcinoma within 5 months of transgene induction. This contrasts with previous reports of mammary tumor development in MMTV-cMET transgenic mice after more than a year. This strong phenotype is not the result of a random insertional effect of the transgene as no mammary tumors developed in the 29 transgene positive mice without mammary-specific expression of rtTA over a year in our study. Molecular characterization of these tumors is currently underway and the results may reveal mechanisms of tumorigenesis and novel therapeutic targets for patients harboring this mutation. In conclusion, we showed for the first time that the cMET(T1010I) mutation can trigger rapid breast tumorigenicity. By using organ-specific expression of rtTA to direct the expression of cMET(T1010I) in the organ of interest, our transgenic model may be used to understand the impact of cMET(T1010I) on many other cancer types such as colorectal, lung, renal, thyroid, and liver cancer. Citation Format: Chuanwei Yang, Ana M. Gonzalez, Naoto T. Ueno, Shuying Liu, Jinsong Zhang, Gordon B. Mills, John Mendelsohn, Prahlad Ram. Induction of mammary carcinoma in tetracycline-inducible cMET(T1010I) transgenic mice. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 668.
    The protein deacetylase SIRT1 has been implicated in the regulation of a large number of cellular processes that are thought to be required for cancer initiation and progression. There are conflicting data that make it unclear whether Sirt1 functions as an oncogene or tumor suppressor. To assess the effect of SIRT1 on the emergence and progression of mammary tumors, we crossed mice that harbor a point mutation that abolishes SIRT1 catalytic activity with mice carrying the polyoma middle T transgene driven by the murine mammary tumor virus promoter (MMTV-PyMT). The absence of SIRT1 catalytic activity neither accelerated nor blocked the formation of tumors and metastases in this model. There was a lag in tumor latency that modestly extended survival in Sirt1 mutant mice that we attribute to a delay in mammary gland development and not to a direct effect of SIRT1 on carcinogenesis. These results are consistent with previous evidence suggesting that Sirt1 is not a tumor promoter or a tumor suppressor.
    Mammary tumor
    Tumor progression
    Sirtuin 1
    Tumor initiation