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Theranostics 2018; 8(12):3256-3267. doi:10.7150/thno.23964 This issue Cite

Research Paper

A tightly controlled Src-YAP signaling axis determines therapeutic response to dasatinib in renal cell carcinoma

Jingya Sun^1,2, Xin Wang^1,2, Boyun Tang³, Hongchun Liu^1,2, Minmin Zhang^1,2, Yueqin Wang^1,2, Fangfang Ping^1,2, Jian Ding^1,2✉, Aijun Shen^1,2✉, Meiyu Geng^1,2✉

1. Division of Anti-tumor Pharmacology, State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, China;
2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;
3. Gene Company Ltd, Shanghai 200233, China.

✉ Corresponding authors: Meiyu Geng, Aijun Shen and Jian Ding; Division of Anti-tumor Pharmacology; State Key Laboratory of Drug Research; Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica; Chinese Academy of Sciences; 555 Zuchongzhi Road, Shanghai 201203, China; Tel.: (86) 21-50806072; Fax: (86) 21-50806072; E-mail: Meiyu Geng, mygengac.cn; Aijun Shen, shenajac.cn; Jian Ding, jdingac.cn More

Abstract

Over the past decade, therapies targeting the VEGF/VEGFR and mTOR pathways have served as the standard of care for the clinical management of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) patients. Albeit promising, these targeted drugs have attained only modest clinical benefits with limited prolonged progression-free survival. Therefore, alternative reasonable and applicable therapeutic approaches should be introduced to improve the clinical outcome of RCC patients.

Methods: FDA approved kinase inhibitors were screened to evaluate their abilities to suppress the proliferation of RCC cells. Then, the downstream effector, therapeutic target and signaling pathway of the selected drug were identified by gene expression array, RNAi, kinase profile and rescue verification. Finally, the in vivo effectiveness of the drug was assessed in cell line-based xenograft models and patient-derived xenograft models.

Results: In this study, we discovered that dasatinib is a potent agent that can impair RCC cell viability in vitro and decrease tumor growth in vivo. Mechanistically, we improved the understanding of the precise mechanistic role of YAP as a pivotal effector of dasatinib-induced anti-proliferation through Src-JNK-LIMD1-LATS signaling cascade in RCC cells. Meanwhile, our results indicated that the alteration of p-YAP is closely correlated to the growth inhibition caused by dasatinib in sensitive RCC models.

Conclusion: Our findings provide evidence that dasatinib may serve as a powerful drug candidate to treat subgroups of RCC patients with hyper-activated Src-YAP signaling axis, and the alteration of p-YAP could serve as a functional response biomarker of dasatinib in RCC.

Keywords: dasatinib, YAP, Src, renal cell carcinoma

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