Ben-Chetrit et al. identified amplification of synaptojanin 2 (SYNJ2), which encodes a phosphoinositol lipid phosphatase implicated in vesicle trafficking, in 4% of 1,980 patients with breast cancer and found that SYNJ2 amplification or overexpression correlated with poor survival. Cells lacking SYNJ2 had defective epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) recycling at lamellipodia, which reduced cell migration and invasion in vitro. Knockdown of SYNJ2 also reduced lung metastasis of xenograft tumours. Finally, the authors identified an inhibitor of SYNJ2 that blocked cell invasion, which should be tested in animal models in future studies.
References
Ben-Chetrit, N. et al. Synaptojanin 2 is a druggable mediator of metastasis and the gene is overexpressed and amplified in breast cancer. Sci. Signal. 8, ra7 (2015)
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Seton-Rogers, S. The importance of recycling. Nat Rev Cancer 15, 136 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc3921
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc3921