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Chemokine receptor CXCR4 downregulated by von Hippel–Lindau tumour suppressor pVHL

Nature volume 425, pages 307–311 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Organ-specific metastasis is governed, in part, by interactions between chemokine receptors on cancer cells and matching chemokines in target organs. For example, malignant breast cancer cells express the chemokine receptor CXCR4 and commonly metastasize to organs that are an abundant source of the CXCR4-specific ligand stromal cell-derived factor-1α (ref. 1). It is still uncertain how an evolving tumour cell is reprogrammed to express CXCR4, thus implementing the tendency to metastasize to specific organs. Here we show that the von Hippel–Lindau tumour suppressor protein pVHL negatively regulates CXCR4 expression owing to its capacity to target hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) for degradation under normoxic conditions. This process is suppressed under hypoxic conditions, resulting in HIF-dependent CXCR4 activation. An analysis of clear cell renal carcinoma that manifests mutation of the VHL gene in most cases revealed an association of strong CXCR4 expression with poor tumour-specific survival. These results suggest a mechanism for CXCR4 activation during tumour cell evolution and imply that VHL inactivation acquired by incipient tumour cells early in tumorigenesis confers not only a selective survival advantage but also the tendency to home to selected organs.

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Figure 1: pVHL and hypoxia regulate CXCR4 expression.
Figure 2: CXCR4 is a target gene of HIF.
Figure 3: pVHL suppresses SDF-1α-mediated chemotaxis of RCC cells.
Figure 4: CXCR4 expression in human renal cell carcinoma.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all members of the laboratory for discussions; K. Struckmann for providing the tumour RNA samples; G. Keller and B. Mohr for human GLUT3 and CXCR4 cDNAs, respectively; and R. Bernards, U. Muller, N. Hynes, G. Thomas and members of our laboratory for critically reading the manuscript. This work was supported by the Robert Wenner Award, the Dr Josef Steiner Foundation and the Novartis Research Foundation. H.M. is supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation. P.S. is supported by an EMBO long–term fellowship.

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Author notes

  1. Peter Staller & Wilhelm Krek

    Present address: Institute of Cell Biology, ETH Hönggerberg, HPM F 42, CH-8093, Zürich, Switzerland

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Maulbeerstrasse 66, CH-4058, Basel, Switzerland

    Peter Staller, Jitka Sulitkova, Joanna Lisztwan, Edward J. Oakeley & Wilhelm Krek

  2. Institute of Pathology, University of Basel, Schönbeinstrasse 40, CH-4031, Basel, Switzerland

    Holger Moch

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Correspondence to Wilhelm Krek.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Figure 1: Gene expression profiles of A498(neo) versus A498(HA-pVHL30) cells (PPT 1989 kb)

41586_2003_BFnature01874_MOESM2_ESM.xls

Supplementary Table 2: Complete gene list of the microarray analysis of A498(neo) and A498(HA-pVHL30)-expressing cells (XLS 136 kb)

41586_2003_BFnature01874_MOESM3_ESM.doc

Supplementary Table 3: Expression of CXCR4, Glut-1 and CA 9 in clear cell and papillary RCC by quantitative PCR (DOC 19 kb)

41586_2003_BFnature01874_MOESM4_ESM.doc

Supplementary Table 4: Association of CXCR4 expression with differentiation grade and tumour stage in clear cell RCC by immunohistochemistry (DOC 19 kb)

Supplementary Figure and Table Legends (DOC 19 kb)

Supplementary Information: MIAME checklist for array analysis of A498(HA-pVHL30) vs. A489(neo) (DOC 34 kb)

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Staller, P., Sulitkova, J., Lisztwan, J. et al. Chemokine receptor CXCR4 downregulated by von Hippel–Lindau tumour suppressor pVHL. Nature 425, 307–311 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01874

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