The impact of Girdin expression on recurrence-free survival in patients with luminal-type breast cancer

Heterotrimeric G protein signaling without GPCRs: The Gα-binding-and-activating (GBA) motif

Heterotrimeric G proteins (Gαβγ) are molecular switches that relay signals from 7-transmembrane receptors located at the cell surface to the cytoplasm. The function of these receptors is so intimately linked to heterotrimeric G proteins that they are named G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), showcasing the interdependent nature of this archetypical receptor-transducer axis of transmembrane signaling in eukaryotes. It is generally assumed that activation of heterotrimeric G protein signaling occurs exclusively by the action of GPCRs, but this idea has been challenged by the discovery of alternative mechanisms by which G proteins can propagate signals in the cell. This review will focus on a general principle of G protein signaling that operates without the direct involvement of GPCRs. The mechanism of G protein signaling reviewed here is mediated by a class of G protein regulators defined by containing an evolutionarily conserved sequence named the Gα-binding-and-activating (GBA) motif. Using the best characterized proteins with a GBA motif as examples, Gα-interacting vesicle-associated protein (GIV)/Girdin and dishevelled-associating protein with a high frequency of leucine residues (DAPLE), this review will cover (i) the mechanisms by which extracellular cues not relayed by GPCRs promote the coupling of GBA motif-containing regulators with G proteins, (ii) the structural and molecular basis for how GBA motifs interact with Gα subunits to facilitate signaling, (iii) the relevance of this mechanism in different cellular and pathological processes, including cancer and birth defects, and (iv) strategies to manipulate GBA-G protein coupling for experimental therapeutics purposes, including the development of rationally engineered proteins and chemical probes.

A Multiomic Analysis Reveals How Breast Cancers Disseminated to the Bone Marrow Acquire Aggressive Phenotypes through Tumor-Stroma Tunnels

Estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer commonly disseminates to bone marrow, where interactions with mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) shape disease trajectory. We modeled these interactions with tumor-MSC co-cultures and used an integrated transcriptome-proteome-network- analyses workflow to identify a comprehensive catalog of contact-induced changes. Induced genes and proteins in cancer cells, some borrowed and others tumor-intrinsic, were not recapitulated merely by conditioned media from MSCs. Protein-protein interaction networks revealed the rich connectome between 'borrowed' and 'intrinsic' components. Bioinformatic approaches prioritized one of the 'borrowed' components, CCDC88A /GIV, a multi-modular metastasis-related protein which has recently been implicated in driving one of the hallmarks of cancers, i.e., growth signaling autonomy. MSCs transferred GIV protein to ER+ breast cancer cells (that lack GIV) through tunnelling nanotubes via connexin (Cx)43-facilitated intercellular transport. Reinstating GIV alone in GIV-negative breast cancer cells reproduced ∼20% of both the 'borrowed' and the 'intrinsic' gene induction patterns from contact co-cultures; conferred resistance to anti-estrogen drugs; and enhanced tumor dissemination. Findings provide a multiomic insight into MSC→tumor cell intercellular transport and validate how transport of one such candidate, GIV, from the haves (MSCs) to have-nots (ER+ breast cancer) orchestrates aggressive disease states.

Quantitative acetylome and phosphorylome analysis reveals Girdin affects pancreatic cancer progression through regulating Cortactin

The actin-binding protein Girdin is involved in a variety of cellular processes, including pancreatic cancer. The objective of this study is to explore the role and the mechanism of Girdin in pancreatic cancer by quantitative acetylome and phosphorylome analysis. We firstly found that Girdin was overexpressed in pancreatic cancer tissue and increased expression of Girdin was associated with tumor size and stage of patients with pancreatic cancer. We established the shRNA knockdown of Girdin in PANC-1 and Aspc-1 cells, and we found that shGirdin inhibited proliferation, migration and invasion, and promoted apoptosis. Subsequently, we identified and quantified 5,338 phosphorylated sites in 2,263 proteins that changed in response to Girdin knockdown, and identified a similar set of Girdin-responsive acetylome data as well. Additional data revealed that down-regulation of Girdin affected Cortactin phosphorylation and acetylation, suggesting Cortactin as an important regulatory target of Girdin. Moreover, we found that overexpression of Cortactin could rescue the effect of shGirdin on proliferation, apoptosism, migration and invasion of pancreatic cancer cells. In general, our results provided new insights into the mechanisms of Girdin function including cell proliferation, migration and invasion, and offer biomarker candidates for clinical evaluation of Girdin.

Girdin protein: A potential metastasis predictor associated with prognosis in lung cancer

The present study explored the relationship between Girdin protein expression and the survival rate of patients with lung carcinoma. A total of 334 lung cancer specimens, 20 benign lung disease tissue sections and 24 fresh tissues from patients with lung carcinoma were analyzed by immunohistochemistry and western blotting. Girdin protein was expressed in 130/334 (38.93%) of the cases examined. Girdin protein expression was correlated with tumor/node/metastasis stage (P<0.001), lymph node metastasis (P=0.001), distant metastasis (P<0.001) and specimen sites (P=0.034). Girdin expression was also correlated with signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) expression (P<0.001). Patients with high Girdin and STAT3 expression had a significantly poorer prognosis compared with those with low/high, high/low or low/low expression (P<0.001). In summary, Girdin may be a prognostic marker of lung cancer and serve as a biomarker for metastasis.

Combination of cytoplasmic and nuclear girdin expression is an independent prognosis factor of breast cancer

Girdin is an actin-binding protein playing key roles in the development of various carcinomas. Although online tools have predicted nuclear localization of girdin with a high probability, convincing proof has rarely been provided until now. The purpose of this study was to discover girdin's precise subcellular distribution and the potential prognostic value corresponding to its localization. The subcellular distribution of girdin was detected in a human breast cancer cell line and in >800 samples of human breast tissue by clinical pathologic analysis. In this study, we discovered for the first time that girdin could attach to chromatin and interact with topoisomerase-IIα in nucleus. Cytoplasmic and nuclear girdin exhibited different roles in prognosis of breast cancer: cytoplasmic girdin expression was an independent prognostic factor for progression-free survival (PFS), whereas nuclear girdin expression was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival (OS). More important, combination cytoplasmic and nuclear girdin was an independent prognosis factor of both OS and PFS. In conclusion, our research results strongly recommend combination analysis of cytoplasmic and nuclear girdin for a precise prognostic prediction in breast cancer.-Zhang, H., Yu, F., Qin, F., Shao, Y., Chong, W., Guo, Z., Liu, X., Fu, L., Gu, F., Ma, Y. Combination of cytoplasmic and nuclear girdin expression is an independent prognosis factor of breast cancer.

The Gαi-GIV binding interface is a druggable protein-protein interaction

Heterotrimeric G proteins are usually activated by the guanine-nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) activity of GPCRs. However, some non-receptor proteins are also GEFs. GIV (a.k.a Girdin) was the first non-receptor protein for which the GEF activity was ascribed to a well-defined protein sequence that directly binds Gαi. GIV expression promotes metastasis and disruption of its binding to Gαi blunts the pro-metastatic behavior of cancer cells. Although this suggests that inhibition of the Gαi-GIV interaction is a promising therapeutic strategy, protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are considered poorly "druggable" targets requiring case-by-case validation. Here, we set out to investigate whether Gαi-GIV is a druggable PPI. We tested a collection of >1,000 compounds on the Gαi-GIV PPI by in silico ligand screening and separately by a chemical high-throughput screening (HTS) assay. Two hits, ATA and NF023, obtained in both screens were confirmed in secondary HTS and low-throughput assays. The binding site of NF023, identified by NMR spectroscopy and biochemical assays, overlaps with the Gαi-GIV interface. Importantly, NF023 did not disrupt Gαi-Gβγ binding, indicating its specificity toward Gαi-GIV. This work establishes the Gαi-GIV PPI as a druggable target and sets the conceptual and technical framework for the discovery of novel inhibitors of this PPI.

Girdin protein expression is associated with poor prognosis in patients with invasive breast cancer

Girdin is an actin-binding Akt substrate that is an integral component of the PI3K/Akt signalling pathway. However, the clinicopathological significance of Girdin expression in breast cancer has not been clarified. The purpose of this study was to characterise the clinicopathological implication of Girdin expression in breast cancer. Immunohistochemistry-based protein expression analyses of 892 human breast cancer tissues showed that Girdin was expressed in 289 (32.4%) cases. Girdin expression was significantly associated with larger tumour size, frequent lymph node invasion, advanced cancer stage, and expression of oestrogen and progesterone receptors. Patients who had breast cancer with Girdin expression experienced significantly poorer overall survival (OS) (p=0.021) and disease-free survival (DFS) (p=0.002) than those without Girdin expression. In subtype analyses, Girdin expression was significantly correlated with poorer OS and DFS in HER2 subtype (p=0.004 and p=0.034, respectively). In triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) subtype, Girdin expression was significantly correlated with poorer DFS (p=0.035), and there was a trend toward poorer OS (p=0.060) in TNBC patients with Girdin expression. Multivariate analysis revealed that Girdin expression was an independent prognostic factor for OS (p=0.022) and DFS (p=0.030) in patients with breast cancer. In HER2 subtype under multivariate analysis, Girdin expression retained its role as an independent prognostic predictor for worse OS (p=0.023), and there was a trend toward poorer DFS (p=0.086) in patients with HER2 subtype expressing Girdin. Girdin expression may serve as a useful prognostic factor for invasive breast cancer, especially for the HER2 subtype.

Prognostic impact of total and tyrosine phosphorylated GIV/Girdin in breast cancers

Gα-interacting vesicle-associated protein (GIV, aka Girdin) is a guanine exchange factor (GEF) for the trimeric G protein Gαi and a bona fide metastasis-related gene that serves as a platform for amplification of tyrosine-based signals via G-protein intermediates. Here we present the first exploratory biomarker study conducted on a cohort of 187 patients with breast cancer to evaluate the prognostic role of total GIV (tGIV) and tyrosine phosphorylated GIV (pYGIV) across the various molecular subtypes. A Kaplan-Meier analysis of recurrence-free survival showed that the presence of tGIV, either cytoplasmic or nuclear, carried poor prognosis, but that nuclear tGIV had a greater prognostic impact (P = 0.007 in early and P = 0.0048 in late clinical stages). Activated pYGIV in the cytoplasm had the greatest prognostic impact in late clinical stages (P = 0.006). Furthermore, we found that the prognostic impacts of cytoplasmic pYGIV and nuclear tGIV were additive (hazard ratio 19.0548; P = 0.0002). Surprisingly, this additive effect of nuclear tGIV/cytoplasmic pYGIV was observed in human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive tumors (hazard ratio 16.918; P = 0.0005) but not in triple-negative breast cancers. In triple-negative breast cancers, tGIV and cytoplasmic pYGIV had no prognostic impact; however, membrane-association of pYGIV carried a poor prognosis (P = 0.026). Both tGIV and pYGIV showed no correlation with clinical stage, tumor size, pathologic type, lymph node involvement, and BRCA1/2 status. We conclude that immunocytochemical detection of pYGIV and tGIV can serve as an effective prognosticator. On the basis of the differential prognostic impact of tGIV/pYGIV within each molecular subtype, we propose a diagnostic algorithm. Further studies on larger cohorts are essential to rigorously assess the effectiveness and robustness of this algorithm in prognosticating outcome among patients with breast cancer.-Dunkel, Y., Diao, K., Aznar, N., Swanson, L., Liu, L., Zhu, W., Mi, X.-Y., Ghosh, P. Prognostic impact of total and tyrosine phosphorylated GIV/Girdin in breast cancers.

CONSORT: Sam68 Is Directly Regulated by MiR-204 and Promotes the Self-Renewal Potential of Breast Cancer Cells by Activating the Wnt/Beta-Catenin Signaling Pathway

Breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs) are considered to be responsible for recurrence in breast cancer. The 68 kDa Src-associated protein in mitosis (Sam68) has been linked to the development and progression of breast cancer; however, the posttranscriptional regulation and role of Sam68 in BCSC self-renewal remain unclear.Sam68 was ectopically overexpressed or knocked down using a siRNA; the self-renewal potential of breast cancer cell lines was assessed using flow cytometry, in vitro mammosphere culture and a xenograft model in NOD/SCID mice. Activation of beta-catenin was assessed by immunohistochemical staining, Western blotting, and luciferase reporter gene assays. The ArrayExpress dataset GSE45666 was used to identify conserved microRNAs downregulated in breast cancer; real-time PCR, Western blotting, luciferase reporter assay, and xenografted tumor model were used to confirm miR-204 regulated Sam68.We found that endogenous Sam68 expression correlated positively with the self-renewal potential of breast cancer cell lines. Overexpression of Sam68 promoted, whereas knockdown reduced, breast cancer cell self-renewal potential in vitro and tumorigenicity in vivo. The Wnt/beta-catenin pathway was identified as a functional mediator of Sam68-induced self-renewal in SKBR-3 and MCF-7 cells. Furthermore, miR-204 was found to be frequently downregulated in human breast cancer and confirmed to directly target Sam68; miR-204 inhibited the self-renewal of breast cancer cell lines by targeting and suppressing Sam68.Our study reveals that Sam68 is regulated by miR-204 and may play an important role in the self-renewal of BCSCs via activating the Wnt/beta-catenin pathway. Sam68 may represent a novel therapeutic target for breast cancer.

Heterotrimeric G proteins as emerging targets for network based therapy in cancer: End of a long futile campaign striking heads of a Hydra

Most common diseases, e.g., cancer are driven by not one, but multiple cell surface receptors that trigger and sustain a pathologic signaling network. The largest fraction of therapeutic agents that target individual receptors/pathways eventually fail due to the emergence of compensatory mechanisms that reestablish the pathologic network. Recently, a rapidly emerging paradigm has revealed GIV/Girdin as a central platform for receptor cross-talk which integrates signals downstream of a myriad of cell surface receptors, and modulates several key pathways within downstream signaling network, all via non-canonical activation of trimeric G proteins. Unlike canonical signal transduction via G proteins, which is spatially and temporally restricted, the temporal and spatial features of non-canonical activation of G protein via GIV is unusually unrestricted. Consequently, the GIV●G protein interface serves as a central hub allowing for control over several pathways within the pathologic signaling network, all at once. The relevance of this new paradigm in cancer and other disease states and the pros and cons of targeting the GIV●G protein interface are discussed.