Effect of the actin- and calcium-regulating activities of ITPKB on the metastatic potential of lung cancer cells

Abstract

Inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate 3-kinase-A (ITPKA) exhibits oncogenic activity in lung cancer cells by regulating Ins(1,4,5)P3-mediated calcium release and cytoskeletal dynamics. Since, in normal cells, ITPKA is mainly expressed in the brain, it is an excellent target for selected therapy of lung cancer. However, ITPKB is strongly expressed in normal lung tissues, but is down-regulated in lung cancer cells by miR-375, assuming that ITPKB might have tumor suppressor activity. In addition, ITPKB binds to F-actin making it likely that, similar to ITPKA, it controls actin dynamics. Thus, the treatment of ITPKA-expressing lung cancer with ITPKA inhibitors simultaneously inhibiting ITPKB may counteract the therapy. Based on these considerations, we analyzed if ITPKB controls actin dynamics and if the protein reduces aggressive progression of lung cancer cells. We found that ITPKB bundled F-actin in cell-free systems. However, the stable expression of ITPKB in H1299 lung cancer cells, exhibiting very low endogenous ITPKB expression, had no significant effect on the actin structure. In addition, our data show that ITPKB negatively controls transmigration of H1299 cells in vitro by blocking Ins(1,4,5)P3-mediated calcium release. On the other hand, colony formation was stimulated by ITPKB, independent of Ins(1,4,5)P3-mediated calcium signals. However, dissemination of H1299 cells from the skin to the lung in NOD scid gamma mice was not significantly affected by ITPKB expression. In summary, ITPKB does not affect the cellular actin structure and does not suppress dissemination of human lung cancer cells in mice. Thus, our initial hypotheses that ITPKB exhibits tumor suppressor activity could not be supported.