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Rho GTPases: Anti- or pro-neoplastic targets?

Oncogene volume 36, pages 3213–3222 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

Rho GTPases are critical signal transducers of multiple pathways. They have been proposed to be useful anti-neoplastic targets for over two decades, especially in Ras-driven cancers. Until recently, however, few in vivo studies had been carried out to test this premise. Several recent mouse model studies have verified that Rac1, RhoA, and some of their effector proteins such as PAK and ROCK, are likely anti-cancer targets for treating K-Ras-driven tumours. Other seemingly contradictory studies have suggested that at least in certain instances inhibition of individual Rho GTPases may paradoxically result in pro-neoplastic effects. Significantly, both RhoA GTPase gain- and loss-of-function mutations have been discovered in primary leukemia/lymphoma and gastric cancer by human cancer genome sequencing efforts, suggesting both pro- and anti-neoplastic roles. In this review we summarize and integrate these unexpected findings and discuss the mechanistic implications in the design and application of Rho GTPase targeting strategies in future cancer therapies.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support from the University of Cincinnati Medical Scientist Training Program and the Molecular and Developmental Biology Graduate Program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The work in the Yi Zheng lab is partly supported by NIH grants R01 CA193350, R01 DK104814 and R01 HL134617.

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  1. I Zandvakili and Y Lin: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Experimental Hematology and Cancer Biology, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

    I Zandvakili, Y Lin & Y Zheng

  2. Molecular and Developmental Biology Graduate Program, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

    I Zandvakili & Y Zheng

  3. Medical-Scientist Training Program, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

    I Zandvakili & Y Zheng

  4. Division of Hematology-Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

    J C Morris

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  1. I Zandvakili
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Correspondence to Y Zheng.

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Zandvakili, I., Lin, Y., Morris, J. et al. Rho GTPases: Anti- or pro-neoplastic targets?. Oncogene 36, 3213–3222 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/onc.2016.473

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