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Endoplasmic reticulum protein 29 (ERp29) in epithelial cancer

Larry H Bernstein, MD, FCAP, Writer and Curator

http://pharmaceuticalinnovation.com/2015/04/07/Endoplasmic reticulum protein 29 (ERp29) in epithelial cancer[7.3.4]

 

7.3.4 Endoplasmic reticulum protein 29 (ERp29) in epithelial cancer

Friend or Foe: Endoplasmic reticulum protein 29 (ERp29) in epithelial cancer

Chen S, Zhang D
FEBS Open Bio. 2015 Jan 30; 5:91-8 http://dx.doi.org:/10.1016/j.fob.2015.01.004

Chen S¹, Zhang D²
FEBS Open Bio. 2015 Jan 30; 5:91-8
http://dx.doi.org:/10.1016/j.fob.2015.01.004

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) protein 29 (ERp29) is a molecular chaperone that plays a critical role in protein secretion from the ER in eukaryotic cells. Recent studies have also shown that ERp29 plays a role in cancer. It has been demonstrated that ERp29 is inversely associated with primary tumor development and functions as a tumor suppressor by inducing cell growth arrest in breast cancer. However, ERp29 has also been reported to promote epithelial cell morphogenesis, cell survival against genotoxic stress and distant metastasis. In this review, we summarize the current understanding on the biological and pathological functions of ERp29 in cancer and discuss the pivotal aspects of ERp29 as “friend or foe” in epithelial cancer.

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is found in all eukaryotic cells and is complex membrane system constituting of an extensively interlinked network of membranous tubules, sacs and cisternae. It is the main subcellular organelle that transports different molecules to their subcellular destinations or to the cell surface [10,85].

The ER contains a number of molecular chaperones involved in protein synthesis and maturation. Of the ER chaperones, protein disulfide isomerase (PDI)-like proteins are characterized by the presence of a thioredoxin domain and function as oxido-reductases, isomerases and chaperones [33]. ERp29 lacks the active-site double-cysteine (CxxC) motif and does not belong to the redox-active PDIs [5,47]. ERp29 is recognized as a characterized resident of the cellular ER, and it is expressed ubiquitously and abundantly in mammalian tissues [50]. Protein structural analysis showed that ERp29 consists of N-terminal and C-terminal domains [5]: N-terminal domain involves dimerization whereas the C-terminal domain is essential for substrate binding and secretion [78]. The biological function of ERp29 in protein secretion has been well established in cells [8,63,67].

ERp29 is proposed to be involved in the unfolded protein response (UPR) as a factor facilitating transport of synthesized secretory proteins from the ER to Golgi [83]. The expression of ERp29 was demonstrated to be increased in cells exposed to radiation [108], sperm cells undergoing maturation [42,107], and in certain cell types both under the pharmacologically induced UPR and under the physiological conditions (e.g., lactation, differentiation of thyroid cells) [66,82]. Under ER stress, ERp29 translocates the precursor protein p90ATF6 from the ER to Golgi where it is cleaved to be a mature and active form p50ATF by protease (S1P and S2P) [48]. In most cases, ERp29 interacts with BiP/GRP78 to exert its function under ER stress [65].

ERp29 is considered to be a key player in both viral unfolding and secretion [63,67,77,78] Recent studies have also demonstrated that ERp29 is involved in intercellular communication by stabilizing the monomeric gap junction protein connexin43 [27] and trafficking of cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator to the plasma membrane in cystic fibrosis and non-cystic fibrosis epithelial cells [90]. It was recently reported that ERp29 directs epithelial Na(+) channel (ENaC) toward the Golgi, where it undergoes cleavage during its biogenesis and trafficking to the apical membrane [40]. ERp29 expression protects axotomized neurons from apoptosis and promotes neuronal regeneration [111]. These studies indicate a broad biological function of ERp29 in cells.

Recent studies demonstrated a tumor suppressive function of ERp29 in cancer. It was found that ERp29 expression inhibited tumor formation in mice [4,87] and the level of ERp29 in primary tumors is inversely associated with tumor development in breast, lung and gallbladder cancer [4,29].

However, its expression is also responsible for cancer cell survival against genotoxic stress induced by doxorubicin and radiation [34,76,109]. The most recent studies demonstrate other important roles of ERp29 in cancer cells such as the induction of mesenchymal–epithelial transition (MET) and epithelial morphogenesis [3,4]. MET is considered as an important process of transdifferentiation and restoration of epithelial phenotype during distant metastasis [23,52]. These findings implicate ERp29 in promoting the survival of cancer cells and also metastasis. Hence, the current review focuses on the novel functions of ERp29 and discusses its pathological importance as a “friend or foe” in epithelial cancer.

2. ERp29 regulates mesenchymal–epithelial transition

2.1. Epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) and MET

The EMT is an essential process during embryogenesis [6] and tumor development [43,96]. The pathological conditions such as inflammation, organ fibrosis and cancer progression facilitate EMT [16]. The epithelial cells after undergoing EMT show typical features characterized as: (1) loss of adherens junctions (AJs) and tight junctions (TJs) and apical–basal polarity; (2) cytoskeletal reorganization and distribution; and (3) gain of aggressive phenotype of migration and invasion [98]. Therefore, EMT has been considered to be an important process in cancer progression and its pathological activation during tumor development induces primary tumor cells to metastasize [95]. However, recent studies showed that the EMT status was not unanimously correlated with poorer survival in cancer patients examined [92].

In addition to EMT in epithelial cells, mesenchymal-like cells have capability to regain a fully differentiated epithelial phenotype via the MET [6,35]. The key feature of MET is defined as a process of transdifferentiation of mesenchymal-like cells to polarized epithelial-like cells [23,52] and mediates the establishment of distant metastatic tumors at secondary sites [22]. Recent studies demonstrated that distant metastases in breast cancer expressed an equal or stronger E-cadherin signal than the respective primary tumors and the re-expression of E-cadherin was independent of the E-cadherin status of the primary tumors [58]. Similarly, it was found that E-cadherin is re-expressed in bone metastasis or distant metastatic tumors arising from E-cadherin-negative poorly differentiated primary breast carcinoma [81], or from E-cadherin-low primary tumors [25]. In prostate and bladder cancer cells, the nonmetastatic mesenchymal-like cells were interacted with metastatic epithelial-like cells to accelerate their metastatic colonization [20]. It is, therefore, suggested that the EMT/MET work co-operatively in driving metastasis.

2.2. Molecular regulation of EMT/MET

E-cadherin is considered to be a key molecule that provides the physical structure for both cell–cell attachment and recruitment of signaling complexes [75]. Loss of E-cadherin is a hallmark of EMT [53]. Therefore, characterizing transcriptional regulators of E-cadherin expression during EMT/MET has provided important insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying the loss of cell–cell adhesion and the acquisition of migratory properties during carcinoma progression [73].

Several known signaling pathways, such as those involving transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β), Notch, fibroblast growth factor and Wnt signaling pathways, have been shown to trigger epithelial dedifferentiation and EMT [28,97,110]. These signals repress transcription of epithelial genes, such as those encoding E-cadherin and cytokeratins, or activate transcription programs that facilitate fibroblast-like motility and invasion [73,97].

The involvement of microRNAs (miRNAs) in controlling EMT has been emphasized [11,12,18]. MiRNAs are small non-coding RNAs (∼23 nt) that silence gene expression by pairing to the 3′UTR of target mRNAs to cause their posttranscriptional repression [7]. MiRNAs can be characterized as “mesenchymal miRNA” and “epithelial miRNA” [68]. The “mesenchymal miRNA” plays an oncogenic role by promoting EMT in cancer cells. For instance, the well-known miR-21, miR-103/107 are EMT inducer by repressing Dicer and PTEN [44].

The miR-200 family has been shown to be major “epithelial miRNA” that regulate MET through silencing the EMT-transcriptional inducers ZEB1 and ZEB2 [13,17]. MiRNAs from this family are considered to be predisposing factors for cancer cell metastasis. For instance, the elevated levels of the epithelial miR-200 family in primary breast tumors associate with poorer outcomes and metastasis [57]. These findings support a potential role of “epithelial miRNAs” in MET to promote metastatic colonization [15].

2.3. ERp29 promotes MET in breast cancer

The role of ERp29 in regulating MET has been established in basal-like MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells. It is known that myosin light chain (MLC) phosphorylation initiates to myosin-driven contraction, leading to reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton and formation of stress fibers [55,56]. ERp29 expression in this type of cells markedly reduced the level of phosphorylated MLC [3]. These results indicate that ERp29 regulates cortical actin formation through a mechanism involved in MLC phosphorylation (Fig. 1). In addition to the phenotypic change, ERp29 expression leads to: expression and membranous localization of epithelial cell marker E-cadherin; expression of epithelial differentiation marker cytokeratin 19; and loss of the mesenchymal cell marker vimentin and fibronectin [3] (Fig. 1). In contrast, knockdown of ERp29 in epithelial MCF-7 cells promotes acquisition of EMT traits including fibroblast-like phenotype, enhanced cell spreading, decreased expression of E-cadherin and increased expression of vimentin [3,4]. These findings further substantiate a role of ERp29 in modulating MET in breast cancer cells.

Fig. 1  ERp29 triggers mesenchymal–epithelial transition. Exogenous expression of ERp29 in mesenchymal MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells inhibits stress fiber formation by suppressing MLC phosphorylation. In addition, the overexpressed ERp29 decreases the …

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4329646/bin/gr1.gif

 

2.4. ERp29 targets E-cadherin transcription repressors

The transcription repressors such as Snai1, Slug, ZEB1/2 and Twist have been considered to be the main regulators for E-cadherin expression [19,26,32]. Mechanistic studies revealed that ERp29 expression significantly down-regulated transcription of these repressors, leading to their reduced nuclear expression in MDA-MB-231 cells [3,4] (Fig. 2). Consistent with this, the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway which is an important up-stream regulator of Slug and Ets1 was highly inhibited [4]. Apparently, ERp29 up-regulates the expressions of E-cadherin transcription repressors through repressing ERK pathway. Interestingly, ERp29 over-expression in basal-like BT549 cells resulted in incomplete MET and did not significantly affect the mRNA or protein expression of Snai1, ZEB2 and Twist, but increased the protein expression of Slug [3]. The differential regulation of these transcriptional repressors of E-cadherin by ERp29 in these two cell-types may occur in a cell-context-dependent manner.

Fig. 2  ERp29 decreases the expression of EMT inducers to promote MET. Exogenous expression of ERp29 in mesenchymal MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells suppresses transcription and protein expression of E-cadherin transcription repressors (e.g., ZEB2, SNAI1 and Twist), ..

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4329646/bin/gr2.gif

2.5. ERp29 antagonizes Wnt/ β-catenin signaling

Wnt proteins are a family of highly conserved secreted cysteine-rich glycoproteins. The Wnt pathway is activated via a binding of a family member to a frizzled receptor (Fzd) and the LDL-Receptor-related protein co-receptor (LRP5/6). There are three different cascades that are activated by Wnt proteins: namely canonical/β-catenin-dependent pathway and two non-canonical/β-catenin-independent pathways that include Wnt/Ca²⁺ and planar cell polarity [84]. Of note, the Wnt/β-catenin pathway has been extensively studied, due to its important role in cancer initiation and progression [79]. The presence of Wnt promotes formation of a Wnt–Fzd–LRP complex, recruitment of the cytoplasmic protein Disheveled (Dvl) to Fzd and the LRP phosphorylation-dependent recruitment of Axin to the membrane, thereby leading to release of β-catenin from membrane and accumulation in cytoplasm and nuclei. Nuclear β-catenin replaces TLE/Groucho co-repressors and recruits co-activators to activate expression of Wnt target genes. The most important genes regulated are those related to proliferation, such as Cyclin D₁ and c-Myc [46,94], which are over-expressed in most β-catenin-dependent tumors. When β-catenin is absent in nucleus, the transcription factors T-cell factor/lymphoid enhancer factors (TCF/LEF) recruits co-repressors of the TLE/Groucho family and function as transcriptional repressors.

β-catenin is highly expressed in the nucleus of mesenchymal MDA-MB-231 cells. ERp29 over-expression in this type of cells led to translocation of nuclear β-catenin to membrane where it forms complex with E-cadherin [3] (Fig. 3). This causes a disruption of β-catenin/TCF/LEF complex and abolishes its transcription activity. Indeed, ERp29 significantly decreased the expression of cyclin D₁/D₂ [36], one of the downstream targets of activated Wnt/β-catenin signaling [94], indicating an inhibitory effect of ERp29 on this pathway. Meanwhile, expression of ERp29 in this cell type increased the nuclear expression of TCF3, a transcription factor regulating cancer cell differentiation while inhibiting self-renewal of cancer stem cells [102,106]. Hence, ERp29 may play dual functions in mesenchymal MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells by: (1) suppressing activated Wnt/β-catenin signaling via β-catenin translocation; and (2) promoting cell differentiation via activating TCF3 (Fig. 3). Because β-catenin serves as a signaling hub for the Wnt pathway, it is particularly important to focus on β-catenin as the target of choice in Wnt-driven cancers. Though the mechanism by which ERp29 expression promotes the disassociation of β-catenin/TCF/LEF complex in MDA-MB-231 cells remains elusive, activating ERp29 expression may exert an inhibitory effect on the poorly differentiated, Wnt-driven tumors.

Fig. 3  ERp29 over-expression “turns-off” activated Wnt/β-catenin signaling. In mesenchymal MDA-MB-231 cells, high expression of nuclear β-catenin activates its downstream signaling involved in cell cycles and cancer stem cell …

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4329646/bin/gr3.gif

3. ERp29 regulates epithelial cell integrity

3.1. Cell adherens and tight junctions

Adherens junctions (AJs) and tight junctions (TJs) are composed of transmembrane proteins that adhere to similar proteins in the adjacent cell [69]. The transmembrane region of the TJs is composed mainly of claudins, tetraspan proteins with two extracellular loops [1]. AJs are mediated by Ca²⁺-dependent homophilic interactions of cadherins [71] which interact with cytoplasmic catenins that link the cadherin/catenin complex to the actin cytoskeleton [74].

The cytoplasmic domain of claudins in TJs interacts with occludin and several zona occludens proteins (ZO1-3) to form the plaque that associates with the cytoskeleton [99]. The AJs form and maintain intercellular adhesion, whereas the TJs serve as a diffusion barrier for solutes and define the boundary between apical and basolateral membrane domains [21]. The AJs and TJs are required for integrity of the epithelial phenotype, as well as for epithelial cells to function as a tissue [75].

The TJs are closely linked to the proper polarization of cells for the establishment of epithelial architecture[86]. During cancer development, epithelial cells lose the capability to form TJs and correct apico–basal polarity [59]. This subsequently causes the loss of contact inhibition of cell growth [91]. In addition, reduction of ZO-1 and occludin were found to be correlated with poorly defined differentiation, higher metastatic frequency and lower survival rates [49,64]. Hence, TJs proteins have a tumor suppressive function in cancer formation and progression.

3.2. Apical–basal cell polarity

The apical–basal polarity of epithelial cells in an epithelium is characterized by the presence of two specialized plasma membrane domains: namely, the apical surface and basolateral surface [30]. In general, the epithelial cell polarity is determined by three core complexes. These protein complexes include: (1) the partitioning-defective (PAR) complex; (2) the Crumbs (CRB) complex; and (3) the Scribble complex[2,30,45,51]. PAR complex is composed of two scaffold proteins (PAR6 and PAR3) and an atypical protein kinase C (aPKC) and is localized to the apical junction domain for the assembly of TJs [31,39]. The Crumbs complex is formed by the transmembrane protein Crumbs and the cytoplasmic scaffolding proteins such as the homologue of Drosophila Stardust (Pals1) and Pals-associated tight junction protein (Patj) and localizes to the apical [38]. The Scribble complex is comprised of three proteins, Scribble, Disc large (Dlg) and Lethal giant larvae (Lgl) and is localized in the basolateral domain of epithelial cells [100].

 

Fig. 4  ERp29 regulates epithelial cell morphogenesis. Over-expression of ERp29 in breast cancer cells induces the transition from a mesenchymal-like to epithelial-like phenotype and the restoration of tight junctions and cell polarity. Up-regulation and membrane …

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4329646/bin/gr4.gif

The current data from breast cancer cells supports the idea that ERp29 can function as a tumor suppressive protein, in terms of suppression of cell growth and primary tumor formation and inhibition of signaling pathways that facilitate EMT. Nevertheless, the significant role of ERp29 in cell survival against drugs, induction of cell differentiation and potential promotion of MET-related metastasis may lead us to re-assess its function in cancer progression, particularly in distant metastasis. Hence, it is important to explore in detail the ERp29’s role in cancer as a “friend or foe” and to elucidate its clinical significance in breast cancer and other epithelial cancers. Targeting ERp29 and/or its downstream molecules might be an alternative molecular therapeutic approach for chemo/radio-resistant metastatic cancer treatment