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Identification of a c-Jun N-terminal kinase-2-dependent signal amplification cascade that regulates c-Myc levels in ras transformation

Oncogene volume 31, pages 390–401 (2012)Cite this article

Abstract

Ras is one of the most frequently activated oncogenes in cancer. Two mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) are important for ras transformation: extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and c-Jun N-terminal kinase 2 (JNK2). Here we present a downstream signal amplification cascade that is critical for ras transformation in murine embryonic fibroblasts. This cascade is coordinated by ERK and JNK2 MAPKs, whose Ras-mediated activation leads to the enhanced levels of three oncogenic transcription factors, namely, c-Myc, activating transcription factor 2 (ATF2) and ATF3, all of which are essential for ras transformation. Previous studies show that ERK-mediated serine 62 phosphorylation protects c-Myc from proteasomal degradation. ERK is, however, not alone sufficient to stabilize c-Myc but requires the cooperation of cancerous inhibitor of protein phosphatase 2A (CIP2A), an oncogene that counteracts protein phosphatase 2A-mediated dephosphorylation of c-Myc. Here we show that JNK2 regulates Cip2a transcription via ATF2. ATF2 and c-Myc cooperate to activate the transcription of ATF3. Remarkably, not only ectopic JNK2, but also ectopic ATF2, CIP2A, c-Myc and ATF3 are sufficient to rescue the defective ras transformation of JNK2-deficient cells. Thus, these data identify the key signal converging point of JNK2 and ERK pathways and underline the central role of CIP2A in ras transformation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Danish Cancer Society (TK, MJ), the Danish Medical Research Council (TK), Ellen and Aage Fausbøll Helsefond (TK), the Danish National Research Foundation (MJ), Danish Cancer Research Foundation (CE), the Novo Nordisk Foundation (CE), the Academy of Finland (JW, RL, SH), Competetive Research Funding of the Pirkanmaa Hospital District (JW, AK), the Finnish Cancer Society (JW, SH) and the Finnish Cancer Organizations (RL) and the Finnish Microarray and Sequencing Centre at Turku Centre for Biotechnology. We additionally thank Dr G Nolan for the pB-puro and pB-hygro constructs, Dr H Land for the c-Myc pB-puro construct, Dr S Kitajima for the ATF3 reporter constructs and Dr T Hai for the ATF3 construct. We are thankful for KG Henriksen and P Rammer for excellent assistance and LB Larsen and L Jørgensen for the in vivo tumorigenicity assay.

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  1. D P Mathiasen and C Egebjerg: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Apoptosis Department and Centre for Genotoxic Stress Research, Institute of Cancer Biology, Danish Cancer Society, Copenhagen, Denmark

    D P Mathiasen, C Egebjerg, S H Andersen, B Rafn, P Puustinen, M Daugaard, T Bøttzauw, C F Nielsen, M Jäättelä & T Kallunki

  2. Institute of Medical Technology, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

    A Khanna

  3. Computational Systems Biology Laboratory, Institute of Biomedicine and Genome-Scale Biology Research Program, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    E Valo & S Hautaniemi

  4. Turku Centre for Biotechnology, University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland

    S Tuomela, R Lahesmaa & J Westermarck

  5. Department of Biology, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    B M Willumsen

  6. Department of Pathology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    J Westermarck

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  1. D P Mathiasen
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Correspondence to T Kallunki.

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Mathiasen, D., Egebjerg, C., Andersen, S. et al. Identification of a c-Jun N-terminal kinase-2-dependent signal amplification cascade that regulates c-Myc levels in ras transformation. Oncogene 31, 390–401 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/onc.2011.230

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