AP-1 regulates heterogeneous cellular dormancy in TNBC

Abstract

AbstractDormant or slow cycling cells (SSCs) pre-exist in tumor and responsible for chemo-resistant and tumor recurrence. Label retaining is a common method to obtain live SCCs from tumor. Different label retaining methods have been developed, but there still haven’t been reported whether different label retaining methods would result in same or different population of SCCs. We have utilized three label retaining methods simultaneously and identified overlapping but non-identical subpopulations of SCCs. These SCCs have similar yet different phenotypes in cell cycle, detoxification, motility and most importantly chemo-resistance. Gene profile shows three subpopulations of SCCs share similar gene expression pattern, and AP-1 subunit JunB overexpression is a key regulator of cellular dormancy. Inhibition of AP-1 could reduce drug resistance and tumor recurrence caused by SCCs, makes it a potential drug target for SCC elimination that could Improve patients’ survival.