1. Real-time sensing of MAPK signaling in medulloblastoma cells reveals cellular evasion mechanism counteracting dasatinib blockade of ERK activation during invasion
- Author
-
Marc Thomas Schönholzer, Jessica Migliavacca, Elena Alvarez, Karthiga Santhana Kumar, Anuja Neve, Alexandre Gries, Min Ma, Michael A. Grotzer, and Martin Baumgartner
- Subjects
Medulloblastoma ,Nuclear ERK1/2 activation sensor ,Cell migration ,Cerebellum slice culture ,Fluorescent biosensor ,Live cell imaging ,Neoplasms. Tumors. Oncology. Including cancer and carcinogens ,RC254-282 - Abstract
Aberrantly activated kinase signaling pathways drive invasion and dissemination in medulloblastoma (MB). A majority of tumor-promoting kinase signaling pathways feed into the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) extracellular regulated kinase (ERK1/2) pathway. The activation status of ERK1/2 during invasion of MB cells is not known and its implication in invasion control unclear.We established a synthetic kinase activation relocation sensor (SKARS) for the MAPK ERK1/2 pathway in MB cells for real-time measuring of drug response. We used 3D invasion assays and organotypic cerebellum slice culture to test drug effects in a physiologically relevant tissue environment.We found that hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), epidermal growth factor (EGF), or basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) caused rapid nuclear ERK1/2 activation in MB cells, which persisted for several hours. Concomitant treatment with the BCR/ABL kinase inhibitor dasatinib completely repressed nuclear ERK1/2 activity induced by HGF and EGF but not by bFGF. Increased nuclear ERK1/2 activity correlated positively with speed of invasion. Dasatinib blocked ERK-associated invasion in the majority of cells, but we also observed fast-invading cells with low ERK1/2 activity. These ERK1/2-low, fast-moving cells displayed a rounded morphology, while ERK-high fast-moving cells displayed a mesenchymal morphology. Dasatinib effectively blocked EGF-induced proliferation while it only moderately repressed tissue invasion, indicating that a subset of cells may evade invasion repression by dasatinib through non-mesenchymal motility. Thus, growth factor-induced nuclear activation of ERK1/2 is associated with mesenchymal motility and proliferation in MB cells and can be blocked with the BCR/ABL kinase inhibitor dasatinib.
- Published
- 2020
- Full Text
- View/download PDF